Saint Germain
by imissedyourpatronage
Summary: Sequel to Irresistible (the film noir/pulp fiction AU). Alex and Piper have made it to Paris and are hoping to have a nice quiet "retirement". Life, however, doesn't seem to be all that eager to cooperate and before long they run into trouble.
1. Under the Skies of Paris

Hey everyone, here I am back again with a sequel to the Vauseman noir AU I wrote what seems like about a million years ago, _Irresistible_ (if you haven't read that I'm not entirely sure you'll get this, so you might want to go take a look). It was supposed to be one shot (seriously!) but it got a just a wee bit out of hand. Many thanks to the awesome reverse-swing, who a) encouraged me to expand the tiny idea I had in my head into a story and b) read it with enthusiasm as it was being written. She also came up with the title because she is good at titles and I am not.

(I haven't forgotten the Batman AU. Long story short, I kind of hit a wall with writing and this was my way of breaking through it... suffice it to say, it worked so hopefully that bodes well for my other stuff).

* * *

 **Chapter 1 - Under the Skies of Paris**

There was something nagging at me. It wasn't anything big, wasn't like I was tormented all the damn time. It was just something under the surface, that tugged at my consciousness, trying to get my attention in idle moments. It had started off as a rare thing, just every once in awhile, but lately it had begun popping up more.

It'd been eight weeks since Piper Chapman and I had been reunited in Mexico, and to my constant astonishment, she hadn't yet dropped me like a hot rock. Evidently she found the whole "cynical misanthrope" thing intensely appealing, although she claimed I wasn't nearly as unrefined as I pretended to be.

I tried to tell her that I was just as unrefined as I acted, that it was just that she was so tired of stuck up assholes that she didn't mind. She would laugh (that genuine, from the gut laugh that wasn't exactly lilting and beautiful, but did make my heart do all those flips the stupid poets are always going on about)... but it wasn't like she was denying it.

She wasn't the only one who was satisfied with our life together. Hell, I was probably happier than I'd been since I was a damn kid. I was in love with someone who loved me back, and I had learned that I could actually be in a relationship without fucking everything up.

The most surprising thing for me was that I hadn't even begun to feel restless or bored with her. It wasn't like I'd really stuck around a whole lot of girls for longer than a night or two, but usually when I did it started to make me itch and feel like I was suffocating. With Piper, I felt like there was nothing else I needed in the world. Some might say eight weeks wasn't long enough to make that determination, but when your previous relationship record was three weeks and a nasty breakup that left you scarred for years... well, they should've been giving me a damn gold medal.

So yeah, Piper wasn't a problem. The problem (and I never fucking thought this would be a goddamn problem), was that we'd been living in Paris for a month and we had too much money. The dough we'd taken off Kubra and Piper's piece of shit excuse for a father wasn't exactly enough to start renting space in Versailles, but it was enough that, as long as we weren't buying any solid gold tiaras, we'd didn't have to work.

We'd made our way lazily from Mexico to New York, then across the Atlantic to Southampton. We'd spent a week in London (where I'd enjoyed the English cynicism, and their fondness for meat pies) and then we'd settled in Paris. We'd found a modest little flat in Saint-Germain-des-Pres and settled in. Piper assured me the neighborhood was a hotbed of intellectualism and ideas... intellectualism and ideas didn't bother me, but I was more interested in the fact that it was a place where, as long as we weren't making out on a street corner, no one would give a shit about us being "lady friends".

Piper was used to being one of the idle rich. _She_ was fine with spending her days wandering around markets, sitting in cafes eating what the French passed off as breakfast, sipping coffee out of tiny cups, and listening to the intellectuals argue about philosophy all around her. I didn't fault her for it, it was just how she was raised, and she never held it over anyone.

 _I_ wasn't much accustomed to being idle period. My Ma had worked all her life, as had just about everyone else I'd grown up with. Where I grew up, if you didn't work, you didn't eat, and I'd been doing _something_ since I was thirteen. It may have been bent as fuck at first, but after that nearly killed me, I found a legit job that was about as close to a racket as you could get without ending up in a cell. And then, even as a PI, if I didn't have an actual client, I'd always end up stumbling across some (legal enough) hustle I could stick my nose into.

In short, by now, I'd gotten past the newness of everything in Paris. I'd wandered around and gawked at all the same tourist shit all the Americans gawked at, I was itching for _something_ to do.

Piper knew it was bothering me, so she did her part to try to distract as much as possible. Part of that was just enough sex to make our neighbors sorry they'd chosen to live in a flat that had been built at a time when no one knew what soundproofing was. The other was making sure my days were as full as she could make them, trying to find new things for me to do, although she couldn't be around all the time. She had her own interests, and both of us needed time apart occasionally.

One thing she had a particular talent for was finding really fucking good food. Once a week, we'd eat at a five star restaurant, one of those places with six courses and a wine list that came in a leatherbound book, places that I'd never even tried to go into before.

Tonight it was a place called Maxim's across the river and a little to the west of Saint Germain. The place was amazing, maybe the best food I'd had in my life. Afterwards, we decided to walk back home. It was about a mile and a half, but the night was unseasonably warm for early September, 65 degrees (I refused to use Celsius... it was just fucking weird... I just learned the conversion in my head and confused the fuck out of the natives when I talked about it), and frankly I just liked walking with Piper. The people around here didn't look twice when we held hands, and there was something about being able to walk down the street with her like that that made my cynical heart beat a little faster.

As we strolled towards the Pont de la Concorde, I lit a cigarette and said, "Jesus, after that I'm not sure I'm going to need to eat for a week. When these people actually _cook_ their fucking meat it tastes pretty damn good."

She smiled, "Darling, just because steak tartare isn't cooked doesn't mean it's not a delicacy... or that they're trying to kill you."

"Look, Pipes, it's raw hamburger with a fucking raw egg on top of it. If that's not food poisoning on a plate, I don't know what is. I wouldn't touch it, and I've eaten Red's herring, pickle, and pig fat sandwiches..." I shuddered slightly at the memory.

"Such a gourmand," she said, knocking her shoulder into mine gently and kissing me on the cheek, "I've always appreciated your refinement when it comes to food."

"I can appreciate _good_ food just fine, Pipes," I replied as we reached the bridge and started to cross, "And it's not like I haven't had a lot of it since we got here. Their language may be weird, and their streets were designed by someone with a grudge against logic, but these people know their way around a good dinner... and their desserts. Fuck. That creme brulee was better than sex..."

She turned to me, eyebrow raised, "Really? Perhaps I haven't been trying hard enough.."

"Okay, well not better than _sex_..." I corrected hastily, squeezing her hand, "But y'know... really fuckin' good..."

"Hmm, such a way with words..." We made it to the other side of the bridge and stood waiting to cross the Quai Voltaire, "So," she said, "I've managed to keep you satisfied for another night, then, have I darling?"

I chuckled, "You keep me satisfied most nights, babe."

"You know what I mean, Alex," she said, her voice serious. "I know that I've rather selfishly taken you from your life in Los Angeles, the job, your friends. I feel it only appropriate that I do my best to keep you from sinking into idleness and boredom."

We had made it to the other side of the street. I sighed and tugged her hand gently, pulling us out of the flow of foot traffic until we were in standing in the entry way to a closed bank. I faced her and looked her straight in the eye. "Piper, you didn't hold a gun to my head and force me to leave LA. I left because I wanted to, because I love you and I'm not dumb enough to let someone as perfect for me as you slip away. Yeah, I liked my job... when I actually got any work, but besides Nicky and Joe, it wasn't like I'm missing anyone. If I'm bored, it's just because I'm not trying hard enough to figure out how to keep myself busy."

"But..."

"No buts, babe," I said, kissing her softly (a bold move even here), "I'm as satisfied as I've ever been in my entire life. I'll get a little more settled in and then even the little nagging bits of restlessness that I've been having will go away."

She examined me closely for a long moment, searching my eyes for anything that would put the lie to my words. Finally she leaned forward and kissed my cheek, slipping her arms around my neck, "I love you too, darling."

I returned the embrace, putting my arms around her waist. For a few minutes we just stood there holding one another, appreciating the fact that we were together, that we were in Paris, that we were far away from everything that had threatened us not all that long ago.

Finally, we parted and started walking again in a contented silence. And if there was a small, traitorous voice in the back of my head saying that yes, satisfaction was fine but it'd be nice if something interesting would happen, I ignored it because I really was happy.

And no matter how much downtime I had, I couldn't forget that interesting didn't always mean good.

* * *

Which was exactly the thought that was running circles around my head about five minutes later when I was up backed into a blind alley with a heater pointed at my gut by someone who looked like they meant serious business.

Any possibility of trying to fight had fled the minute the gun had come out. I wasn't too bad in a scrap when put to the test, but I preferred to keep things civil. I liked talking things out, letting my "big fat smart mouth" (as Joe liked to call it) do most of the work. I could use my fists, and to pretty good effect when I had the right motivation, but I wasn't suicidal. At this distance, any attempt at throwing a punch would've ended with me getting a lead enema.

It didn't help I was winded and half panting from having run half a mile and I wanted nothing more than to double over with my hands on my knees and let my two pack a day lungs get their shit together, but I wasn't dumb enough to take my eyes off the gun... I mean, I was dumb enough to let myself get led down a blind alley at night in an unfamiliar neighborhood by someone who had just tried to rob my girlfriend, but... well, maybe there wasn't a but on that one...

It made me feel a little better that the person I'd been chasing, a wiry woman with dark brown skin and big, expressive eyes that were anxious and angry in about equal measures, _was_ doubled over trying to recover her breath. At least I'd given her a run for her money (even more impressive given she was in trousers and a pair of loafers and I was in a classy dress and silk stockings, having lost my goddamn flats after two steps)... of course the one with the gun, also a woman, was tall, broad as a barn and there wasn't any anxiety in her eyes, just anger and suspicion. Despite that, I couldn't really read her intentions. She was holding the gun with the ease of someone who knew what to do with it, so I had no doubt she'd pull the trigger if she needed to, but I couldn't tell if she wanted to.

She opened her mouth and let go a harsh, angry flood of French words at me, talking so fast that I couldn't really even distinguish any words (well, except " _merde_ ", because as a world traveler, it's always good to know how to swear in all languages) let alone understand what the hell she was saying.

"No par-lay Fran-say..." I managed to wheeze, trying to sound as polite and calming as possible. It had been a month and I'd been making progress learning the language. I had the basics down, but since Piper was always around and she spoke French like a native, it didn't seem real urgent to get to the complicated stuff all that quickly. Given my current situation, I kind of wished I had put a little more effort into it. Or at least learned how to say "Jesus Christ don't fucking shoot me until you really get to know me..."

The girl holding the gun looked at me quizzically, "You a fuckin' American?" she asked, incredulous. Her accent free English marked her as being from the States too, or at least doing a passable imitation of it.

"Last I checked," I said warily, not quite sure how to take the change in tone.

They both studied me a moment longer. I didn't see any way out of this that didn't involve talking... any way out that didn't end with me filled full of holes anyway, so I let them consider a bit. The more time went by without the gun going off, the calmer everyone got...

"Why'd you come chasin' after me?" asked the little one.

My temper flared for a moment as I said, "You tried to rob my gir... friend... my friend!"

"I didn't try to rob anyone!" she replied, indignant.

"You grabbed her fuckin' purse and knocked her shoulder out of joint trying to take it!" She'd come bursting out of an alley as Piper and I had been making our way down the Quai Voltaire, and as soon as I'd established Piper wasn't seriously hurt, I'd taken off after her like a shot.

The girl's brow furrowed, "I... I didn't mean to do that! It was an accident! Look, I was just tryin' to..."

"Shut it, P!" snapped the big one.

The skinny one trailed off, her formerly open face slamming shut like a garage door, smoothing out. She was still upset, but she was done giving shit away for free. She looked unhappy about having given away as much as she had.

She glanced at the girl with the gun, who met her eyes briefly. "You run into a girl, like she said?"

"Yeah... maybe I... my head wasn't on straight when I bolted from..." she stopped again abruptly, cutting her eyes to me and then gesturing.

The tall girl thought that over for a second, then turned to me and said, "That it? That really all it was, you thought she was doin' your girl harm?" Her voice was tense, as though she wasn't quite prepared to believe it was as simple as that.

Despite the situation, I was officially intrigued. They were a pair of black Americans in Paris, but neither of them seemed out of place. It was something about the way they moved, about the way the little one had ducked down alleys and up side streets to get to exactly where she needed to go, the self assurance with which the big one held the gun, as though this was her backyard and she didn't have to worry about anyone rousting her for it...

But there was definitely something at their backs. Both of them had looked ready and willing to put me in the ground before they found out it was a misunderstanding. Some serious shit had to be going on for most people to resort to that. I could feel my curiosity stirring, even though I was damn sure neither of them would appreciate me exercising it.

"Yeah," I said, wondering what it was _she_ thought I had chased her friend for.

"P apologizes, we all good?"

I nodded slowly, incredulous that it was going to be this easy. I hadn't even had to turn on the charm, and they were willing to drop the whole thing... these people had much bigger fish to fry. "Uh yeah... yeah that'd be... I mean, you've got the gun..."

The smaller one, P, turned to me and said, "Sorry, man... real sorry. I got a _lot_ of shit on my mind and I got kind of distracted..."

"Running out of alleys at full speed...?" I asked.

The bigger one glared at me, "I'm pretty sure 'we all good' didn't include no question and answer session, got me?" the point of the gun hadn't moved...

I raised my open hands higher and shrugged, "Sorry... sorry. No we're square..."

The big one nodded, "Alright then..." she stepped aside, P moving along beside her, and gestured toward the mouth of the alley with her gun. "Don't let us see you round here no more, you dig?"

In spite of my curiosity (growing with every breath), I nodded, "Yeah, I dig," I shuffled past them. The adrenaline had worn off and I was now realizing just how stupid it had been to discard my shoes. Despite the potential minefield of junk in the alley, I kept my eyes on the girl with the gun. It was now pointed towards the ground at her side, but she hadn't let go of it.

I walked back north, in the general direction of where I'd left Piper, a million questions running through my head.

Who were they? What was it that had the one called P so spooked in the first place. She'd been running like a bat out of hell, and she evidently hadn't even noticed she'd nearly taken Piper's head off... once they figured out I wasn't who they thought I was they'd just given it up... there had to be something going on... something _big_...

I was halfway down the block when I ran into Piper, who was heading down the sidewalk with my shoes in one hand. The scrapes on her elbows had been cleaned up and she'd neatened her hair back up...

She saw me and smiled, although I could tell she was probably more than a little annoyed at me running off half cocked. It wasn't that she couldn't take care of herself. Being left alone wasn't something she worried about, it was that she worried about me. She knew about my penchant for letting my mouth rack up debts my body couldn't come close to paying when I was feeling particularly righteous. She looked relieved to see me with my nose in the same place as last time she'd laid eyes on it, and the relief seemed to be outweighing the anger.

"Well, darling, it appears you managed to keep yourself from getting punched, which is always encouraging," she said, her voice holding a tone of light admonishment to match the mild dismay I'd seen in her eyes.

I had the decency to look sheepish as I took my shoes from her and slipped them on, "Yeah... well... what's a night out on the town without the imminent a broken rib or two?"

She raised an eyebrow, "I think I'd call that a relaxing evening with my girlfriend," she was examining me more carefully now, making sure the only thing wrong with me was the disheveled hair and torn stockings. "I'm not a fair maiden, Alex. I don't have that much honor to begin with and what there is you've no need to defend. You don't have to go running after everyone who knocks into me in the street..."

"She barreled into you and tried to snag your purse _and_ she knocked you over..." although even as I said it I realized that it might have been a _teeny tiny_ overreaction. It wasn't like Piper had really been hurt, and she'd managed to keep hold of her purse (she could look innocent when she wanted to, but I knew first hand just how dangerous it was to be taken in by that)... "I mean she could've hurt you!"

"Well, I can't say my shoulder will feel that wonderful in the morning but I'm in one piece." Piper had a temper, I'd seen it up close and personal more than once, but she'd had to learn how to keep it in check when dealing with her father. Someone barreling into her on the street wasn't likely to get much of a rise out of her. She leaned up and gave me a kiss on the cheek to confirm she'd forgiven me for running off like an ass, "I mean, it was a nice gesture..."

I huffed a sigh, feeling like a big fucking heel now for reacting like I had, but not _quite_ ready to concede the point. "Yeah, well... you know... you'd have done the same for me..."

"Darling, if that girl had done something that hurt you, I would've certainly done everything in my power to find her and make her regret it, but it wouldn't have involved losing a pair of shoes and risking ruining a perfectly good, and very expensive, evening dress... or participation in a fight."

"I didn't get in a fight!" I said, then stopped, reasonably sure that getting a gun pointed at me was worse. Something occurred to me, "Wait a minute, how did you find me?" The girl had led me on a merry chase through a bunch of back streets and alleyways and I'd been so focused that I never thought about where she was leading me... (again... not smart). I didn't think Piper would've been able to follow us at the speed we'd been going.

"I wasn't looking for you, I was simply heading back home, which I assumed you would do as well when you were finished..."

I frowned and finally took a moment to examine my surroundings. To my surprise we were about three blocks away from our flat. The street we were on was full of bars and jazz clubs. It was nearly 11pm, and the sidewalks were actually filling up. The night didn't really get started in these places until around now. I furrowed my brow... thinking back to how comfortable and assured the two women had looked in this area. This must have been their turf...

Piper hooked her arm through mine and tugged me gently down the street, "Come on, darling, I think we've had quite enough excitement for one night. Let's get home. You can regale me with the full story of your adventure, and then maybe I'll show you how much I appreciate that you at least tried to defend my honor..."

* * *

So there you go! Let me know what you think. Oh and the whole thing is finished, so I won't leave you hanging.


	2. A Chance Encounter

**A/N-** Hoping to be able to put up a chapter a day if I can. Enjoy chapter 2!

* * *

 **Chapter 2 - A Chance Encounter**

Piper woke me up at ten the next morning. I hated waking up before noon. Sleeping late was a tried and true habit from the bad old days when work didn't start until after the sun went down. Piper wasn't exactly an early riser, but she didn't like to waste the day. Sometimes she'd let me sleep and go out on her own, exploring the city. Other days she'd want to spend with me, and she'd roust me, although rarely before ten or eleven. She'd quickly learned that there was only one way to wake me up that early that would ensure I wasn't entirely impossible. Luckily she enjoyed it as well, even if it did delay our going out bit.

It was nearly eleven when we made it out of the apartment and we went down to the cafe across the street from our flat and sat down at one of the sidewalk tables. The waiter brought us each the tiny croissant and child sized glass of orange juice that the French called breakfast ( as much as I loved their dinner, breakfast was more of a challenge; _la petite dejuner_ my ass... nothing about breakfast should've been fucking petite). He also brought coffee (or espresso or whatever the hell they called it), which _almost_ salvaged the whole meal. I brought the tiny little cup up to my nose and inhaled contentedly.

The French may have tried to starve me in the morning, but they had more than a decent handle on caffeine. This stuff had a kick to it that made even the best I'd had in LA seem like Red's dirty dishwater, and it actually tasted good too. Back home, I'd never asked my coffee to do much of anything except to be strong enough to make my hair stand on end. I usually bolted it so fast I didn't realize it had a goddamn taste.

Here, I'd learned about flavor. Despite the fact that living off Piper's money made me feel a little uncomfortable after a lifetime of working for myself, I couldn't say it was disappointing to finally be able to indulge in good food and drink _all_ the time and not just as something to celebrate a special event or a getting a big job (as if that ever really happened).

Piper sipped her coffee and waited until I'd mostly emerged from my bleary morning stupor before she said, "I thought we might spend the day together..."

I raised an eyebrow at her, "We spend every day together, babe," I said as I finished my coffee and signaled for another. Not that I minded spending time with her. I hadn't gotten tired of spending time with her yet, I was mostly just waiting for her to get fed up with my bullshit.

"Yes, well, today is different because..." her voice changed, becoming lofty and overdramatic as she over-enunciated every word with a dead on British accent, and projected as only someone who'd taken three years of drama at Smith could, " _today_ I'll have a new appreciation for all of life's gifts after coming so very close to death or, possibly, a very bad bump on the head, yesterday night," she grinned at me, I rolled my eyes, "And of course my love for you has only _grown_ after you risked all to defend my admittedly tattered honor..."

"Hey someone pointed a gun at me!"

She squeezed my hand, her voice going back to normal, her eyes softening, "Yes but it didn't go off, and I'd have to say that really _is_ something to be grateful for."

I sighed and gave her a smile, "Yeah me too." My second cup of coffee arrived. We lapsed into comfortable silence as I drank and she applied jam to her croissant with the world's tiniest butter knife.

As I drank I looked out at the people wandering by and wondered exactly where the two girls who'd confronted me last night were now. Did they live nearby? Did they work around here? Was whatever they were so fucking afraid of here as well? Piper had done a swell job of distracting me both last night and this morning, but now that I was back out on the street, my curiosity was beginning to get the better of me again...

"Are you all right, Al?"

I started, turning back to her with a smile, "I'm fine... why...?"

"You're ignoring your food."

I glanced down at the untouched croissant, "Uh..."

"Generally I would suspect some type of apocalyptic scenario. Perhaps a wasting disease... but neither of those seem to be the case."

"I'm okay, Pipes. Really."

She raised her eyebrow, skeptical. I sighed. Piper hardly needed her uncanny ability to read me to realize I'd gotten distracted.

"I was thinking about those girls from last night."

"The ones who waved a gun in your face?" something dark flashed in her eyes, "Yes. I can see why you'd be concerned with them..."

"I just... I can't figure it out. Why the one was in such a hurry, why they just let me go once they figured out why I was chasing her..."

Piper studied me for a long moment, "Alex, I know we discussed this last night, but I still can't help but think that perhaps your undue curiosity is my fault for not helping you find more to occupy yourself with."

I sighed, "And I told you, Pipes, it's not your fault. And as for the curiosity, I'm pretty sure the only things I'm _really_ good at being suicidally curious and reasonably clever."

"That's not _all_ you're good at," she breathed, her eyes flashing. We both paused as pleasant memories of our early morning activities flitted through our brains.

"Okay, well yeah, that too," I grinned, putting my hand over hers, "Point is, you need to stop thinking you've done anything wrong, at least when it comes to me. If it weren't for you I'd probably be dead, and I'd definitely be a lot less happy," I shrugged, "I'm just bad at minding my own business."

"I understand curiosity, but as I recall it didn't do much for the cat, and it hasn't really done all that much for you in the past either..." her blue eyes were soft, and even a little anxious. I could see her flashing back to the night I'd almost died. " I left Los Angeles because I wanted to get away from dramatics... it doesn't do any good to get too involved in other people's problems, especially when the people in question aren't exactly begging for your help..."

Piper wasn't the kind of woman who let her guard down, and for the life of me I couldn't figure out why she'd chosen to do so around me, but I figured it didn't do much good to examine it. All I could try to do was make sure she never regretted trusting me enough to be show me her vulnerable side. So I nodded, "Yeah you're right." I didn't want to get Piper mixed up in something that could potentially be bad news when she'd just so recently gotten away from the shit she'd been sunk into practically her whole life. Her father being rich hadn't done her a damn bit of good until the day she stole his money, and I didn't want to ruin the life she wanted to build with it... the life she'd chosen to share with me.

I threw back the last of my coffee, then picked up my croissant and said, "It'll take me about forty five seconds to finish this off, and then we can get going... Maybe we can stop and get one of those cream filled chocolate covered jobs on the way to the museum... tide me over for a bit..."

"That can be quite easily arranged, darling," she said, smiling radiantly as she recognized that I was putting the whole thing aside. I smiled back, figuring that as long as I didn't go looking for trouble and tired to keep myself busy, the curiosity would eventually fade. Somehow I forgot that just because I wasn't searching for trouble didn't mean it wasn't looking for me...

* * *

Our flat was on a street called Rue Princesse (which I'd told Piper was perfect for her when we'd let the place... that one had gotten me a very dirty look). We were walking north on that street, away from our flat towards Rue du Four which led to a weird four street intersection with Boulevard Saint-Germain... when a door burst open to our right and someone barreled out of a closed bar.

This time they ran straight into me rather than Piper, and instead of hopping up and moving straight on, the offending party bore me to the sidewalk and ended up getting their ankle twisted around, crying out as we landed hard. All I could think was, what were the goddamn odds...

The wind had been knocked out of me, but besides that and a bruised ass I didn't think I'd sustained any real injuries. Piper had gone down next to me on one knee and was trying to disentangle me from the person who'd run into me.

I looked up and locked eyes with the same girl who'd run into Piper last night only now she looked significantly worse for the wear. The entire left side of her face was swollen. She'd been socked hard, and pretty recently, maybe only a minute ago. Her lip was split, there was a nasty cut on her cheek, and her left eye was rapidly swelling closed... she'd have a beauty of a shiner later...

If she'd been scared and anxious last night, she was fucking terrified out of her mind today. Her eyes were wide and fear radiated out of them in waves, so strong that it sent a chill down my spine just to look at her. The more closely I examined her the more I realized things were worse than I'd initially thought just from her face. Her clothes were in disarray, torn, with blood spattered on them, and the way she was moving, trying to extract herself from the messy pile we'd made on the sidewalk had a note of panic to it, the kind that usually made things worse rather than better.

Finally, with an assist from Piper, we managed to get separated. I was in a half sitting position, Piper behind me, a hand on my shoulder, "That's the girl... from last night..." I managed, as I recovered my breath. The minute the girl was free, she sprang to her feet... and immediately cried out and stumbled when she tried to put her weight on her twisted ankle.

Piper reacted fast, getting to her feet grabbing the girl by her arm to ensure she didn't fall. Almost against her will, the girl slumped into Piper, still shaking like a leaf, eyes still terrified, but the pain in her ankle (and evidently in her ribs, which had put an arm around protectively) had overwhelmed the adrenaline that had propelled her out the door and she couldn't move.

We could hear her muttering something. I had gotten to my feet and was standing next to them now. She was speaking French, too shaky and strung together and muffled by the state of her face for me to understand. Piper glanced at me, "She's saying we have to get away from here or they'll..."

Before she could finish her sentence, the door the girl had pushed through was pushed open with enough force that it rattled the windows as it slammed against the facade of the bar. Two men, one black, one white, one whip thin, one built like a brick wall, both radiating _mean_ and uncivilized despite their expensive suits, burst out looking ready to accelerate to full speed once they hit they hit the sidewalk. They stopped dead when they saw us, the loss of momentum momentarily turning them into a slapstick scene from a Marx Brothers picture as they tried to keep their balance.

They stood and glared at us, trying to figure out what to do with this shift in circumstances. Clearly they'd been expecting to have to chase the girl down... just as clearly they'd been at least partially responsible for what had happened to her, because when she saw them she went rigid as a plank and a small, pathetic sound escaped her mouth that hit the part deep inside me that got my hackles up.

I wasn't much of a humanitarian. I was self interested and averse to putting my ass on the line for people I didn't know unless they were paying me, but one thing I couldn't stand was piece of shit bully picking on someone who couldn't possibly fight back. It was like a primal instinct from back when I was the tallest kid in school, scaring off the assholes who beat up the little kids for their lunch money.

I squared my shoulders and glared at the two men. I knew I would never be able to fight them. There were two, they were clearly professionals, and my street fighting skills would be as useless here as they had been against P's friend with the gun last night, but it was broad daylight and we were on a public street. The French may have been snooty, but they weren't blind, and I'd have bet my lucky deck of cards that the two gorillas in front of me had no interest in making a scene. If we could just get out of their line of sight maybe we could take the kid someplace she'd be safe.

I was still trying to figure out what the fuck to do when Piper spoke up. She still had an arm around P, who remained motionless, and she'd had drawn herself up to her full height (in her absurd high heels she was nearly as tall as the shortest enforcer). She'd also put on her most imperious rich lady face, which could be quite terrifying when it was turned up full blast.

" _Is there something we can help you gentlemen with?_ " she said in French. She was speaking slowly and distinctly enough that even I could understand, her tone clipped and full of the kind of contempt only the very rich could manage towards people they felt were beneath them. It wasn't loud, it wasn't blustering, but it held an absolute assurance of being obeyed that could only come with a lot of money or a lot of moxie, and Piper had more than enough of both.

These guys were muscle, not brains. I'd known plenty of them back home, and guys like them weren't paid to make decisions or think on their feet. They were given a task and they did it. Variables just confused them. Variables like a woman who dressed rich, looked at them like they were barely worthy of her attention and talked to them like she didn't give a shit that they both had guns bulging under their jackets and violence in their eyes.

In fact, Piper probably looked and talked a lot like the kind of people who told them what to do. The wiry one said something back to her, much faster than she'd spoken, so I couldn't catch every word. He gestured to P and narrowed his eyes. His tone was wary.

Piper glanced at P, " _But she does not seem to want to go with you._ "

The man spoke again, slower, as though he couldn't quite figure out what was happening, " _She is our friend..._ "

" _That seems unlikely..._ " Piper glanced at me. I gave her the slightest of nods. We may not have known who P was or what the fuck was going on exactly, but we did know that if we left her to these two nothing good would come of it. Maybe neither of us were angels, but we weren't going to abandon someone in need, despite what Piper had said earlier about not wanting to get involved in other people's business. " _In fact, she seems in need of some medical attention. My friend and I will escort her to a doctor. Good day gentlemen_."

Before either of the two men could react properly, she tightened her grip on P as gently as possible and began moving her in the direction we'd originally been going, towards the Rue du Four, where there was even more foot traffic, witnesses the men would have to take in to account.

P seemed just as astonished as the men were. She seemed to wake from her terror induced trance as I took up position on her other side and put my hand on her lower back to move her along. She looked from Piper to me, not sure what to say, but she didn't resist. She may not have known our intentions, but she knew we were probably a better bet than the two men behind us.

Piper picked up the pace slightly. It was probably faster than P wanted to be going on her ankle, and she grimaced hard with every step, but thankfully she was no dummy... she knew surprise was about all we had right now, and the less time the gunmen had to recover from theirs the better.

Finally, we reached the corner and turned right onto Rue du Four. Keeping her eyes front, Piper asked, "Where can we take you that will be safe?"

P frowned at that, "Ain't sure safe is an option anymore... but there is a place where at least someone'll have my back..."

And we headed as fast as we could through the mid-morning crowds towards Boulevard Saint-Germain, all of us hoping that no one was following...


	3. Le Chat Noir

**A/N-** If it's not obvious, I'm getting a lot of my Paris geography from Google maps and such. If you spot any errors please let me know. It may be fiction, but I like to be as accurate as possible... now, on to Chapter 3!

* * *

 **Chapter 3- Le Chat Noir**

I wasn't all that surprised when our new friend directed us back to the street where she and the other girl had led me the night before. It was perhaps a half mile from the flat, and by the time we got there, P was sweating, her teeth gritted against the pain in her ankle, and probably in her face and her ribs as well.

Surprisingly, there was no sign anyone had followed us, and I had a bad feeling that all it really meant was that they knew where to find P if they needed to...

She led us to a bookstore halfway down the street, on the opposite side from the alley I'd first met her in. I thought we were going inside, but then she stepped past it and stopped in front of a second door set into the wall, painted black. Above the door was a sign with a picture of a very devious looking black cat on it. The cat was grinning and sitting on a piano.

P gave us a last wary look, and then knocked on the door twice, then three times then twice again. I looked at Piper. She was frowning, and it suddenly occurred to me that we didn't know where this girl was leading us to or who would be there when we arrived. We weren't exactly well acquainted with her. My gut told me she was okay, but my gut wasn't infallible, and who knew whether saving her life had earned us any real credit with her.

There was a small panel in the door set at eye level. It slid open slowly. A pair of eyes glared out at us and immediately widened when they landed on P. "The _fuck_!" said a familiar voice. The panel slid closed. There was the sound of locks being thrown and then the door opened slowly. The woman from the night before stood there, filling the door and holding her gun on me... again.

Behind her, I could see a short, dimly lit hallway that led to another door.

"Damn it! Knew I shoulda filled you with lead when I saw you, you fuckin'..."

Before she could finish the thought, P interrupted, her voice coming out muffled by her swelling lip, "Nah, Cindy... ain't like that... weren't for them, I'd be..." she shuddered at the thought. Cindy scowled at us, apparently not quite ready to believe that we weren't the bad guys in this scenario. Lucky for us, she didn't have a whole lot of time to consider. Standing out in the street wasn't likely to do much for P's health. The big girl... Cindy... reluctantly stepped aside, ushering us past her, keeping the gun trained on us as she closed and secured the door. She turned towards us and gestured to the door at the far end of the hall.

It took my eyes a second to adjust to the mood lighting, when it did I paused to take in my surroundings and note, with a grimace, that we'd walked into what could potentially be an epically bad situation. This was obviously Cindy and P's territory. At least last night in the alley, we'd been in public, where a good loud scream would've at least turned a few heads. Once Cindy closed the door, there was just the four of us and a badly lit, probably soundproofed hallway.

P had nearly collapsed with relief when we'd walked through the door, which told me she felt totally secure and immediately made me feel less so. Everything here was an unknown. I was really hoping we wouldn't regret deciding to play good Samaritan...

The hallway was painted a dark crimson that, combined with the dim lighting, was very atmospheric... and also made it so that we couldn't tell whether there were any hidden alcoves ahead. And it was cramped, just wide enough for the Piper and I, supporting P, to walk abreast. Cindy didn't exactly reassure me about her intentions when she prodded Piper forward with the gun, "Forward march, Blondie..."

I saw the slightest flare of temper flash in Piper's eye, and her jaw set hard, but she kept herself from reacting. Piper had had to allow people to push her around for a lot of her life. Mostly it was all part of her plan, her way of reeling them in before she made them regret it, but that didn't mean she liked it, especially when she'd thought she was through with that kind of shit. I gave her what I hoped was a calming look and prayed Cindy didn't do anything that would really piss her off...

The inside door was almost identical to the outside door, except that when we got close, we could see the same lazy looking black cat from the sign carved into it. We stopped at the door and Cindy reached past us and thumped hard on the door three times.

Immediately, we could hear the sound of locks being undone, and the second door opened. There was another black woman standing at the top of a short flight of stone stairs that appeared to lead into a well lit basement room, the light filtering up from it bright enough that it took me a minute to focus. Her dress the latest fashion, cut to show off athletic arms and toned legs clad in silk stockings. Her posture had been alert, and turned hostile and defensive when she saw us. Her eyes narrowed and she scowled. The scowl deepened when she saw P... "The fuck...?" she snapped in English.

"Clear out, Janae, P needs the doc!"

"Yeah I got that, Cindy, but what about them..."

"They the ones holding her up," Cindy said, exasperated, "and ain't like they not already inside so get the fuck out the way and we can figure out what we're gonna do with them when we've got our girl's shit handled!"

"The old lady isn't gonna like it..."

A voice floated up from below, "The old lady likes it much less when you refer to her as the old lady..."

The woman named Janae continued to glare for another long moment, looking a lot like she just wanted Cindy to shoot us and get it over with, but she finally let her concern for her friend outweigh her desire to fill us full of holes and she turned and led the way down.

The stairs led down into a large, low ceilinged basement. The floor was hardwood, but the rest of the place was like a cave, exposed brick and stone walls with large wooden beams overhead. To our left was a bar with a shelves full of liquor mounted on the mirrored wall behind it. Beyond the bar was a hallway that led further back into the basement. On the wall opposite the bar was a small raised stage, and in front of that a large cleared area that looked like a dance floor. The rest of the room was taken up with tables and chairs laid out in seemingly random fashion.

Directly in front of us, the wall between the bar and the stage was lined with booths, and in the one nearest the bar sat two women. Both were black and older than any of the girls we had seen so far. They slid out of the booth and rushed over to us when they saw P. The younger of the two had the feel of being a bodyguard or some sort of security. Not the sort of iron fist bludgeon that Cindy clearly was, but the sort of person who knew how to keep people safe. I'd known plenty of people like that, most of them were either cops or right hand men to gangsters... I had the distinct feeling this one was the latter.

The older one looked to be somewhere in her 60s. She was short, thick around the middle, and had close cropped graying hair... but her spine was straight and her chin was up and she carried herself with unshakable authority. It wasn't hard to tell who was in charge here. As soon as she got close enough to see the worst of P's face, she didn't waste any time. Barely sparing us a glance, she began taking action.

She pulled out a chair at one of the tables, gesturing for us to put P down in it. She looked at Janae and snapped an order to her in rapid fire French. I caught something that sounded like "nun". Almost before the older woman was done speaking, Janae was hurrying towards the hallway that led towards the back. Presumably there was another less public entrance there.

We set P down and took a step back as the right hand woman knelt down in front of her and did a quick triage, cataloguing the girl's wounds. Cindy hadn't put her gun away, but it was finally pointing at the ground.

The older woman switched to English. I had expected her to be American, like the others, but she had a French accent. She was looking at us, but addressed Cindy, "And who may I ask are they?"

"I didn't get no formal introduction, Miss Claudette. I met four eyes there last night. She the one I told you about..."

"The one who ran after Poussey after she... left the meeting?'

"Yeah..."

Despite the situation, I held back a chuckle. _Poussey_? Really...? I glanced sidelong at Piper, who had gotten over her annoyance with Cindy and was wearing her nice polite rich lady mask. She met my eyes and rolled her own when she saw what I was thinking.

Claudette tilted her head, "Then you must be the women Poussey ran into?"

Piper nodded, "I was. But there was no harm done."

"Hm," Claudette studied us carefully, "And how did you come to run into her again today?"

"Well, this time she ran into me," I said, "She was sprinting out of a bar we thought was closed, over on Rue Princesse. A couple of guys followed her. They didn't exactly look pure of heart, so we decided to help her... avoid their company."

Her eyes narrowed, "Did you recognize these men?"

"No. I mean, we wouldn't have recognized her," I gestured to Poussey, who looked exhausted but relieved to be safe. "if it hadn't been for last night."

"Ah..." For a second, I thought she might tell us more, maybe give us some idea why Poussey always seemed to be running away from shit like a bat out of hell... but then her expression shifted and I could tell that she wouldn't be saying anything. Cindy may have had kind of a big mouth, blurting out names, letting things nearly slip, but this woman was a pro. She wouldn't reveal anything unless she wanted to.

All she'd wanted to do was assure herself that we really were in the dark about what was really up, and now that she had, she was already preparing to dismiss us. A glance over at Piper said that she wouldn't mind. Piper liked being in control of a situation like this. Unknowns made her nervous, and the faster we got out of here the better, as far as she was concerned. Her words from earlier this morning echoed through my brain. She'd left LA because she didn't want to worry about trouble... knowing what was going on here, getting involved with these people... that had trouble written all over it.

Claudette gave us a tight smile, "I thank you both for getting her away from those men and making sure she got here. Your efforts are very much appreciated. If you come back some night, I will make sure you get a prime table and a drink or two on the house..."

Piper smiled her gracious debutante smile, "Thank you, that's quite generous of you. We were happy to be of help."

Claudette shook our hands, her grip firm. "Cindy will show you out."

A million questions were burning in my head, but Piper's hand on my arm was firm. She knew what I was thinking, she knew I wanted to know all the details of what the fuck was going on here, but these were absolutely not the sort of people that would take well to questions.

I let her guide me after Cindy. Cindy led us to the outside door and opened it for us. As we went past her, I asked, "Is she going to be okay?"

"Now we got the nun coming, I think so," Cindy said. She went to close the door, then paused, "And thanks. Y'know... for lookin' after her..." Without another word she shut the door and we heard the locks being thrown back into place.

I sighed, staring at the closed door, annoyed none of my questions had been answered. Piper had to pull me to get me moving. We walked towards the Boulevard and I shook my head, "Something bad's going down there, Pipes. Maybe real bad..."

"It's entirely possible, but we did as much as we could to help. It isn't as though they were soliciting our assistance once we had delivered the girl..."

I nodded, "I guess."

She gave me a kiss on the cheek, "I think we've had quite enough heroics for one day, darling. I think a few hours looking at paintings will do us good..."

I took a deep breath and forcibly shoved Cindy and Poussey and the others off to the side of my brain, something to be obsessed about later. Right now, it was a sunny day in Paris, I was walking down the street with Piper Chapman, and it was almost lunch time. I figured I had plenty to enjoy without seeking out a possibly fatal adventure...

* * *

Kind of a little interlude... tune in tomorrow...


	4. Nighttime in the City

**A/N-** A nice long chapter with all manner of excitement in it...

* * *

 **Chapter 4 - Nighttime in the City**

Just because I didn't want any problems with Claudette and her girls didn't mean I couldn't take her up on her offer of free drinks and a prime table...

I knew Piper didn't want us getting mixed up in anything, but I couldn't see the harm in just going down there and having a nice night out... and if we happened to pick up some information that might shut down the curiosity that kept poking me in the back every time I sat idle for longer than five minutes, then it was all to the goddamn good as far as I was concerned.

Jazz clubs were more my thing that Piper's. She didn't mind them per se, but they weren't part of who she was like they were with me. It wasn't so much the jazz part that I loved (although I found that jazz was music I could definitely get behind), it was the close in, hot, smoky atmosphere of the club itself. It was the type of place that I'd spent a lot of nights in, the type of place I felt at home in, even this far away from where I had lived my whole life. I didn't need to speak the language to enjoy drinking, and dancing and flirting with a pretty girl (I mean, Piper was the only pretty girl who really caught my eye these days, but I still flirted with her like mad). Joints like this reminded me of Red's, of action and laughter and, in the old days, the hustle and the thrill of the chase.

I'd made a few connections in the weeks we'd been here, talking music and nightlife with guys at Les Deux Magots (not the best name for a place that served food, far as I was concerned, but that was the French for you) while Piper talked philosophy or sipped her tea. I asked around and found out that Claudette's place was called Le Chat Noir and that it had been there since the war. Rumor had it that a Resistance cell that operated out of it, but no one knew for certain and these days everyone claimed to have been in the Resistance during the war. It had a good reputation, lots of big acts circulated through, but just as many new guys made their start there. They didn't much advertise, relying mostly on good word of mouth, which was why I hadn't heard of them before.

It took a couple days to convince Piper that going back to the bar when it was crowded with patrons and filled with noise wouldn't be tempting fate. It wasn't like we were going to have another confrontation with Claudette. If we saw her or the other girls we met they'd be too busy to do much but give us the drink they promised. "I swear I just want to go out and have some fun, I'm not looking for anything more..."

"There are half a dozen clubs on that street alone, darling..."

"Yeah, but this is the one where the owner promised us free shit."

"You realize we're flush with cash, don't you?"

"Look, we've been to most of the other clubs around here. I didn't even know that one was there until we went into it the other day... I like trying new shit..."

She studied me shrewdly, "You don't like trying new anything, Al. You went to the same three clubs in LA for almost 15 years. The only reason you've been trying so many here is you want to find one you can call your 'regular place' and none of the others have suited you. Do you really think Le Chat Noir is going to be the best choice for you when it's run by people who've done nothing but knock us over and point guns at us?"

"Never know until I try. Maybe it'll be really nice. I mean I really doubt they'll try to shoot us again anyway..." I took her hand, leaned forward and kissed her, gave her my most sincere look, "Aw come on babe, let's just go this once. I swear, I just want to see what it's like!"

She sighed, "Fine, although I'm only giving in because I know how damnably persistent you can be and I would rather not spend the whole afternoon having to endure more 'convincing'."

I grinned and kissed her again, "Well, I can think of something much more pleasant to spend the whole afternoon doing anyway..."

* * *

Rue St Benoit during the day had been practically sedate... at night it was full of a good looking people, dressed in the latest fashions who wanted to dance the night away and maybe fall madly in love for the next forty eight hours or so. The French knew how to do leisure time, I would give them that.

Piper and I made our way down the street through the press of people and when we arrived at the black door, we found a line up. It was early in the evening, maybe nine, so it wasn't much of a line, but given the fact that none of the other clubs had anyone queued up it was a sign that Claudette's place was doing well.

"See, Pipes, the place'll be so crowded I doubt I'll be able to get in trouble."

"I'm not sure there's any situation where you can't get in trouble. You were just sitting at the kitchen table yesterday and it split in half..."

"Okay, look I can't be responsible for shoddy French craftsmanship... and besides to call that closet a kitchen or that bedstand a table is a bit generous..." I'd thought my place in LA was a little cramped, but it was a sprawling mansion compared to the flat here. I was used to tight quarters going way back, so I didn't much mind (and by that point it hadn't really even surprised me that Piper didn't either), but I was offended at the implication. "Besides, fucking thing broke cause of that big crack _you_ put in it first week we were here..."

She leaned over and spoke into my ear, her voice lowering half an octave, "You're the one who wanted to 'christen' it, darling. Just because I happened to be the one who got rather forcefully laid down on it doesn't make that my fault..."

The memory flashed through my brain and I felt my insides heating up pleasantly. I cleared my throat as she leaned away again, an amused smirk on her face at how easy it was to make me heat up that way. "And it was an antique," she added in a more normal tone, "so I think it was less 'shoddy craftsmanship' than 'medieval craftsmanship'."

I cleared my throat, as though that would somehow automatically clear my mind of impure thoughts, "Yeah, well... y'know... it's not like it broke this morning because I looked at it funny or something..."

Before she could respond, we found we'd come to the front of the line. The door to the club was propped open and Cindy, dressed to the nines but still not looking like someone to be fucked with, was standing guard. She saw us and tilted her head, "Well, shit... if it ain't the princess and the redwood..."

"Why does she get to be the princess?"

Cindy didn't dignify that with an answer, "Y'all ever heard that thing about bad pennies?"

"We're not here to start any shit. I just like jazz..."

" _You_ like jazz?"

"That such a huge stretch?" I asked, bristling slightly.

"Nah, you just seemed more one of them rock and roll sorts..." she shrugged, "You really here just to listen, I guess I ain't gonna be the one t'keep you out. Feel like I owe you for P... though maybe you won't feel the same when Claudette or Maxie sees you..."

I frowned at that, but I wasn't able to ask her to clarify because there were people behind us pressing forward. We walked into the dimly lit hall. The main difference tonight was that there was a coat check room halfway towards the inside door. It had been concealed the other day by a panel in the wall. It was manned by someone we hadn't met before, a skinny little boy , maybe in his early teens, though it was hard to tell. He was dressed in a tux that made him look younger rather than older. We gave over our coats and got the ticket from him, then headed to the inside door.

It was closed but not locked. We pushed through it and were immediately enveloped with a thick wall of smoke and sound. We went down the stairs and emerged into the main room, which was already packed. Most of the tables were occupied, and the dance floor was full of people. The band, an all black five piece with a piano, bass, drums, sax and trumpet was playing something that was more swing than jazz, that I immediately liked.

The bright lights were off, replaced by dim wall mounted lights and a couple of muted chandeliers that loomed so low that they looked ready to hit the taller patrons on the head. The security woman (maybe the Maxie Cindy had referred to) was working the bar with a middle aged black man who had a mustache and an easy smile. I couldn't see Claudette, but given the press of people and the dim, smoky atmosphere it wasn't a stretch to say she'd be hard to spot.

Janae was waiting at the bottom of the stairs. When she saw us, she scowled. Cindy may have been grateful to us for saving Poussey, but it didn't look like Janae was willing to cut us the same slack... or any slack...

"What're you doin' here?"

"Thought we might get a drink, hear some music..."

"Yeah, well maybe you best re-think that. There's plenty of other clubs on this street'd be happy to take your money," her open hostility was raising my hackles. I didn't mind people being sore with me if they had a reason. Hell, sometimes that was the goal, but this girl just had a fucking boulder sized chip on her shoulder and I didn't like the unfairness of her taking it out on me when I'd done nothing to her.

I narrowed my eyes, "You know, most people have to really get to know me before they try to throw me out of their establishment..."

"I don't want to know you. You're fuckin' trouble and we got more than enough of that without you nosin' around..." It was something about her tone. Arrogant and spoiling for a fight, it was hitting all the wrong buttons inside my head.

"I'm not nosing anything you..."

Piper's hand landed gently on my shoulder and I stopped, still scowling but immediately reminded of why where we were and the fact I'd promised her I wouldn't start anything. This wasn't exactly our turf... she spoke in her polite, conciliatory voice, "I realize the circumstances under which we met were less than pleasant, but truly we aren't here to start anything..."

"I don't care what you think you're here to do or not, Veronica Lake. I know you're used to everything bein' brought to you on a silver fuckin' platter, but I'm telling you need to turn your skinny white asses around and go find a sewing circle that's more your fuckin' speed..." and then she poked Piper in the shoulder.

Piper went very still. Her smile stayed in place, but her eyes went hard. She didn't mind a little verbal back and forth, and she might've even consented to leave if Janae'd continued to insist... but fuck if she didn't loathe being pushed around.

Janae was too oblivious and blinded by her own temper to see the change. She took Piper's silence for defiance and went to poke her again. "Maybe you don't hear so good, princess..."

I was trying to decide whether to just let it happen (Janae probably deserved what was coming just because of the Veronica Lake/princess comments), when someone grabbed Janae's wrist and gently directed it back down to her side. We looked over and saw Claudette, who had somehow materialized out of the crowd. She didn't look the least bit surprised to see us.

"What did I tell you about laying hands on the customers without cause, Janae?"

Janae looked over at her boss, "I was just tellin' them to leave and they wouldn't..."

"And why would you tell them that?"

"They're going to stir things up, Miss Claudette."

"You do not know that. They have done nothing yet, and besides I told them to come here when we saw them last."

Janae frowned. She'd been off getting the doctor or nun or whoever when that had happened. Clearly she hadn't been given the breaking news, and from her eyes I could see she resented it. "I'm the doorman, Miss Claudette, I should've been told..."

"You are told what you need to know. You should be polite to all until it becomes clear they don't deserve such courtesies. Now..." she gestured for the girl to let us in. Janae stared her down for a moment, but it was token resistance, the kind of pointless gesture said she didn't like it but she knew arguing the point wouldn't do much good. I'd seen Nicky give Red that staredown more than once. She huffed a sigh and stepped back towards the door.

Claudette tilted her head slightly, "Come, let me show you to a table," she began navigating us skillfully through the crowd. One of the booths had a card perched on it that said it was reserved. She led us to it and gestured for us to sit. It was clearly a place she reserved for VIPs. "Your drinks will be on me all night."

I raised my eyebrows at that, "You don't have to..."

"It is the least I can offer after what you did for Poussey. Mr. Ford makes the best 75 in Paris."

"Well, thanks..." I said, knowing that arguing about it much more wasn't going to do any good. And really, I wasn't one to turn down a free drink anyway.

She nodded and gave a half smile, then she moved away from the booth, melting back into the sea of people, half obscured by smoke and the dim lighting. Piper and I looked at one another. I grinned, "Well, doesn't seem like she's holding a grudge anyway..."

"Either that or she's bringing us 75s with poison in them," Piper replied, although she was smiling wryly.

"Such a ray of sunshine, Pipes..."

"I don't necessarily trust that people will follow the better angels of their nature, darling," she sighed, "But at least this music is less jarring than that 'experimental' jazz you forced me to listen to last week..."

I grimaced at the memory, "Look, I didn't know it was going to go on that long... who knew that you could even make a trumpet sound like a fucking dying cat."

A man appeared at the table and deposited two drinks. He bowed his head curtly then spun away without a word. I raised my glass, "Relax babe... we got in the door, no one's tried to kill or maim us yet. I'm calling it a success so far. I mean, what could possibly go wrong?"

Piper touched her glass to mine and muttered something that sounded a whole lot like, "Famous last words..."

Two hours later, Piper had allowed herself to relax and give in to the atmosphere and the music and just being with me. Bad experiences with alcohol in the past meant that she only drank the stuff in moderation, but she'd had enough that she had let the wariness she'd entered with fall away.

The band that had been playing when we'd come in had taken a break, and had been replaced by a four piece fronted by a tall woman in a stunning sequined red dress. She was belting standards in French and English.

Piper and I had been dancing for about a half hour and we were both parched. After the first round, the bartender had stopped bringing us our drinks personally, so I deposited Piper back at our table and fought my way through to the bar. I had to go to the far end of the bar, nearest the entrance, to find an open space. I waited a few minutes to catch Ford's eye and gave him a nod. He fixed the drinks efficiently and handed them to me.

Drinks in hand, I turned to go back to the table... just in time to see Janae go stumbling back into a table full of patrons, as someone who looked distressingly like one of the assholes who'd beaten up Poussey pushed her hard.

The sound of breaking glass, buckling wood and people gasping and yelling indignantly was louder than the music, and heads turned towards the commotion, even though the band gamely played on.

Having removed the obstacle, the asshole straightened up and glanced over his shoulder. He nodded at someone behind him in the stairwell and that someone emerged, stepping out into the room. It was a woman, black, tall, broad shouldered and middle aged. She was wearing an elegant black dress cut to emphasize her curves and a simple but very shiny diamond necklace. Her steps were unhurried, authoritative, almost regal. The way she carried herself reminded me a lot of Claudette. This woman walked in like she fucking owned the place.

But Claudette had an air about her of someone who was tough but fair, she may have taken no shit, she may have dabbled in some not quite legal business, but in the end she was still a human being. This woman though... she was smiling, and it looked for all the world like a genuine, open and friendly smile... but I'd known more than my fair share of two faced snakes and charming criminals in my time.

She might've been able to fool someone who hadn't dealt with Kubra Balik for most of her life, but I saw in her what I saw in him. Behind the veneer of charm in her eyes, there was an ice cold ruthlessness. I didn't know anything about her, but even if her muscle hadn't just put Janae through a table (and beaten the shit out of Poussey), I would've known she was bad fucking news.

Everyone around me was just as transfixed as I was. The woman came to a stop, looming over Janae, who was trying to shake off the shock and pain of landing in a pile of splintered wood and shattered glass. Her voice was deep and rich and soothing... not a trace of anger or hate in it, despite what was in her eyes. I was close enough that I could hear it over the music.

She spoke English, although whether it was because she wanted to minimize the number of people who might understand her, or because she was more comfortable in that language I had no idea, "Now, that was just rude, trying to keep me out of my own place... when I was here, we knew how to respect our customers... standards have certainly slipped..."

Before Janae could respond (and from the look on her face, even on the ground and dazed she was winding up to hurl some toe curling insults at the woman), Claudette appeared, once again seemingly out of nowhere.

"This is no longer your place, Yvonne, you are not welcome here... I thought that was clear when you left..."

"Is that any way to greet an old friend?"

"You are not my friend, not any longer."

The woman's smile stayed in place, but her eyes narrowed minutely. "Oh that's how it is?"

"You know that's how it is."

"You should show me proper respect, Claudette. I saved your life more times than I can count..."

"And I, yours..." Claudette's tone indicated she was regretting that now. Given the situation, and what I'd seen this woman Yvonne's people do, I had to say I was kind of regretting it too. "The debts I owed you were paid in full when I let you leave here alive..."

"You didn't let me do a damn thing. No one does," Yvonne let her veneer slip, allowing a sneer to curl her lip before the curtain fell again, "But... if that's how you see it then that saves us time reminiscing over the old days."

"Good, then you can leave."

"I'm not leaving until you return what you stole from me, Claudette."

"I stole _nothing_ from you, Yvonne. I told you when you left I would leave you be as long as you never came back. I kept my end of the bargain."

"Still a good liar, I see..."

"I am not lying to you. I have nothing that is yours. More to the point, I _want_ nothing that is yours. I wanted a clean break from you. You know how I do not like a mess..."

"Then perhaps one of your little minions... or do they not ever disobey you...?"

"They did not take anything from you either..."

"Perhaps I should have a conversation with each of them... ask them personally."

Claudette's eyes narrowed, "As you did with Poussey...?"

The smile widened, "Exactly like that. And I was just getting started. If my property isn't returned..."

Before Claudette could respond, a voice rang out from the entrance, in French, loud and distinct, " _Is there some trouble here?"_

Yvonne glanced back and frowned. A uniformed policeman, dark haired, blue eyed, with one of those funny little mustaches that some Frenchmen still thought looked very dapper (they were incorrect), was standing in the doorway. He wasn't particularly large, maybe my height and of average build, but he had the air of a man who knew what he was doing. Even if he hadn't, he'd brought three friends with him. They were filling the space around the foot of the stairs, looking very much like they wanted an excuse to arrest someone... or at least make them wish they'd been arrested.

Claudette answered him, " _No Gaetan, all is well. Miss Parker was just leaving..._ " Claudette looked at Yvonne, "Weren't you, Yvonne?"

The other woman let the mask fall completely, and the wave of anger that radiated from her was like a physical force. She took a step forward and leaned close to Claudette's ear. Gaetan and his pals tensed, but Claudette shook her head. Yvonne whispered something to her, her eyes blazing. Then she spun abruptly on her heel and headed toward the door, her gunman trailing her like a shadow

After a moment, Gaetan and his boys stepped aside to let her pass. She set one foot on the bottom stair and then turned back, "Oh and my name isn't Yvonne anymore. It's Vee..."

And with that she stormed up the stairs and out of the club, leaving everyone in her wake unsettled...

* * *

Everyone had been frozen in place while all of this was going on. The band had kept playing, desperate to make things normal, but the patrons had all been staring at the door. Even if they couldn't hear what was going on, they could tell it was serious. At some point Piper had left our booth and come to stand by my side. It was a sign of how absorbed I'd been in what had been going on that I hadn't even noticed.

"What was that...?" she muttered to me.

"I have no idea... but it wasn't good."

The room had begun moving again as one. Gaetan stepped forward and spoke quietly to Claudette. After a moment, he took his boys and left as well. Some of the patrons followed quickly, probably figuring that things were getting a bit too exciting and not wanting to be around if Vee decided the threat of the cops Claudette clearly owned wasn't enough to keep her away.

The remaining customers went back to what they'd been doing before. Never let it be said that the French couldn't be just as self interested as a bunch of Americans. As long as the drinks were still flowing and the music was still on, who cared whether people's asses were getting kicked... it just added to the ambiance.

Maxie the bartender had come around to help Janae, who was now sitting up but still looked both dazed and pissed off as a bag of wet cats. Claudette gestured and a couple of guys appeared out of nowhere and started cleaning up the broken table and broken glass with an efficiency that said that this wasn't the first time this sort of thing had happened.

Once everything was taken care of in the bar, Claudette headed up the stairs, probably to check on Cindy and the coat check kid. I assumed Cindy had been the one that had fetched the cops, given that the bartenders had been just as frozen as the rest of us.

"We should go," Piper said.

"What?"

"Alex, this was supposed to be a night to relax and. Now that misfortune appears to have found us again, I think it best that we leave before it decides it wants to take up permanent residence..."

I sighed, turning things over in my head. The whole thing had just been an intellectual exercise before. I'd just been giving in to my natural instinct not to leave anything alone but having laid eyes on Vee I realized just how serious this shit was. She reminded me way too much of guys like Kubra to want to voluntarily fuck with her, even if Claudette and her people seemed like they were on the level. Hell, they were the sort of people I could imagine being friends with, or at least having few drinks and a laugh or two with, if I got to know them better.

But the plain fact was I didn't know them, not really. As much as I hated it when good people got rolled over by bad, my only concern was Piper and her safety... well, that and keeping myself alive and upright and unbruised. Just because I could take a punch didn't mean I wanted to... and Vee sure as hell didn't seem like the type who would stop at a good old fashioned knuckle sandwich.

I realized I had the 75s in my hands. I handed one to Piper and drained my own in two. Then I put the glass down on the nearest table, which had emptied, and gave her a rueful shrug, "And I really liked this place too."

"I know, darling, so did I." She finished her own drink at a slightly more ladlylike pace than me, but still with some urgency, then set her own glass down. She took my arm and we headed for the stairs. I caught Claudette's eye as I glanced back to where she and Maxie were huddled together, speaking in hushed tones. She didn't look sore about us leaving. She knew how it was, probably better than me.

I'm sure there were some people who would call such self interest cowardly, but keeping my main concern focused on me and mine had kept me alive long past what I had figured my expiration date would be. It was when I stuck my neck out for other people that I tended to end up shot or stabbed or in the hospital for a month. Of course, doing so had also brought me one or two pretty great things, but I tried not to think about that... I might have a couple nights of restless sleep but it wouldn't be the first time.

Paris was supposed to be a place for new beginnings and peaceful living. Tonight, seeing someone like Vee and how fast she could turn a nice, normal pleasant night into a tense nightmare just re-doubled my determination to stay away. All I could do was hope that fate and circumstances would cooperate as well.

* * *

 **A/N-** Plot thickening...


	5. When Strangers Call

**A/N** \- Another night, another chapter. Enjoy...

* * *

 **Chapter 5- When A Stranger Calls**

I ended up having two nights restless sleep. Who knows if I would've had more because on the third night at around ten, there was a furtive knock on the door, so quiet I wasn't immediately sure if I'd really heard it.

Piper and I were sitting in the flat's common kitchen/sitting room in our respective chairs, reading, steaming mugs by tea by our sides. Piper loved tea... she'd been trying to convert me pretty much since Mexico. We'd even gone to afternoon tea at some high toned fancy place in London. I'd enjoyed the tiny sandwiches and the little cakes... but I was pretty sure I was too American to really enjoy tea... which didn't stop her making the attempt .

We spent our fair share of nights out at clubs and elegant dinners, or waking the neighbors with table breaking sex (if they didn't want to listen they'd have picked a building that had been built after the French Revolution) but some nights we acted like a boring old married couple settling into fucking retirement. Nights like this we'd normally be fast asleep before midnight.

We looked up from our books and frowned at each other. Neither of us were expecting visitors. The knock came again, more urgent this time. Piper put her book aside and stood up. It was always best to have her answer the door because she was a lot better at bowling people over with authority and politeness than me. It worked a lot better with people like our over solicitous landlord than my brand of barely tolerant sarcasm.

She stood slightly off to one side of the door and asked, in French who it was.

"It's Cindy..."

Piper frowned, "Cindy..."

"Yeah... Black Cindy. From The Cat..."

I was out of my chair now, standing near Piper by the door. Piper's mouth had set into a hard line. She wasn't enjoying the turn the evening was taking... to say the least. She glanced at me, then at the door. It was clear she was trying to figure out how to get Cindy off our doorstep without getting any more entangled in their business.

A thought seemed to occur and she narrowed her eyes, pinning me with her gaze, "How did she know where we live, Alex...?" she whispered, a note of suspicion in her voice.

I would've been offended, but given that I had been the one to pursue the thing from day one, I could see where she might've been a little doubtful about me. We didn't have secrets from each other, and I never lied to her outright, but she knew as well as I did that both of us could lie by omission like the best of them. However, I couldn't keep a wounded note out of my voice, "I didn't tell them!"

"I just want to talk..." Cindy said from beyond the door. Her voice was tense and there was a note of pleading to it that worried me because Cindy didn't really strike me as the type who did a whole lot of pleading...

Piper sighed, closing her eyes briefly. She'd run the scenarios in her head, I was sure, figured all the angles. She'd come to the same conclusion I had... we weren't going to be able to get out of this without at least opening the door and talking to her properly.

She gave me a look that told me to let her do the talking and then put the blandly polite mask back on her face. She kept the chain lock on, undid the bolt and twisted the door knob (which was in the middle of the fucking door for some reason). The door opened six inches revealing Cindy... and Poussey... and another third girl, standing behind Cindy, next to Poussey.

The new girl wore a dark wool peacoat despite the warm summer night and had a hat in her hand that she'd probably been wearing to help conceal her face. Her face was round and taut with exhaustion and pain and worry. Despite her dark skin, I could see relatively fresh bruises, and she was leaning into Poussey (who looked a little better than she had the other day, but not by much) in a way that said the skinny girl was about all that was keeping her on her feet.

Piper's jaw tightened as she took in the three of them and she glared at Cindy, who had the decency to look slightly sheepish. The big girl shrugged, "Well I ain't never said it was _just_ me out here..."

* * *

Piper was over in the kitchen area making more tea for our ragtag group of unexpected guests, trying to let her anger burn off, taking out most of it on the battered kettle that had come with the place. I'd wondered at first why she hadn't replaced it like she had a lot of the older furnishings, but then I realized she fixed tea when she was pissed and I got it.

There was another loud crash as Cindy and Poussey got the third girl settled into onto the settee Piper had bought at an antiques market a week after we got here (and that we'd had to haul up three flights of fucking stairs). Cindy glanced at me, "Uh...she gonna be okay?"

"Maybe... I think that might depend on why you showed up at our doorstep in the middle of the night..."

"Ten PM? Days' barely started..."

I raised an eyebrow, "Yeah, for someone who works in a club doesn't really get going until eleven," I glanced over at Piper who appeared to be muttering to herself darkly. She'd seriously considered just slamming the door as soon as she saw what was out there, but in the end she couldn't bring herself to do it. She hated people who bullied others, and Vee was the worst sort. Assuming this was all about Vee...

Poussey sat down next to the new girl, "Look, we're sorry to just turn up like this, but we didn't have anyone else to go to."

I couldn't stop myself from blurting, "Are you fucking kidding me?" Poussey immediately looked somewhat stricken and I took a deep breath. When I spoke again, I hoped I sounded a bit calmer, "I mean, you barely know us. How exactly are we your only option?"

"Vee..." Poussey flinched at the word. The girl next to her put a hand on her shoulder. "She knows all our people around here, she knows 'em real well. Most of 'em Miss C met at the same time as Vee, connections they built together."

"I didn't get the impression Vee left here under real friendly cirucmstnaces."

Cindy, who'd been at the window, peeking out past the curtains made an undignified snorting sound and shook her head hard, "That's a understatement... woman didn't burn her bridges, she rolled a tank on through 'em..."

"So..."

"Problem is, she knows this place. Knows all the places we'd go and knows how to put the screws to folks to get 'em to give us up..."

"That how loyal folks are around here?"

Poussey shook her head, "Ain't about loyalty. It's about what Vee will do. She don't know how to take no for an answer," her hand rose almost unconsciously to the still bruised side of her face, "and I can't say as I'd blame anyone for wanting to stay on her good side..."

"Woman don't have no good side," spat Cindy, "only people she ain't currently tryin' to throw over."

Piper had re-entered the sitting area portion of the room and put down two cups of tea on the small table in front of the settee, a bit more forcefully than was strictly necessary (although she'd somehow managed to avoid spilling any), "And so you decided you'd shift her attention from all these people who know how dangerous she is and are evidently rightfully afraid of her, to us..." her tone was civilized, but the anger beneath the words was clear, "two people you're barely acquainted with and who have no idea what they're getting into...?"

"Look, we didn't have time... we had time we could've figured something out, but Vee got people around so fast, and we couldn't let 'em see we even had what she wanted... might've even been able to get out to the countryside, but she's gearin' up to bring the wrath down on us, and we got no choice..."

Poussey broke in, "We don't know you much, but we know you better'n anyone else, and more important, Vee don't, not really."

"And what makes you believe we'd help you? Do we seem like people who go searching for such a problem?"

Cindy gestured to me, "Well, she does..."

I opened my mouth to protest, but then decided not to bother. I didn't really actively look for problems, but they always seemed to find me, and in the end I suppose that was the same.

Piper waved this away, "I'm sorry. I realize you must be in dire straits to even come here..." she narrowed her eyes as a sudden thought occurred, "How exactly did you find us?"

Poussey cleared her throat uncomfortably. Cindy's eyes skirted back out to the window. She addressed her answer to the glass, "Uh... I had Lil Mike follow you back here other night after you left... didn't know then we'd need your help or nothin', but after Vee showed up I didn't want to take no chances. Fact you were unknowns, fact you'd helped P when there wasn't anything any it for you..."

"And what makes you think this Vee couldn't find us the same way, should she get it in her head to find us?"

"She don't know you know us..."

"Her gorillas saw us when Poussey was got away from them..."

"You won't be on their list," Cindy insisted stubbornly.

Piper shook her head, "Look, we can't help you. If you can find us, this Vee can find us, and even if we aren't the first people she'll think of..."

"You don' t even know what we want," Poussey said, a note of pleading in her voice, "We just need to... keep something here for awhile. Just a couple days, buy us time 'til we can arrange transportation, another place..."

"Keep what here?" I asked. Piper shot me a look that said she didn't even want to know. Knowing would just make the decision to say no harder. Even letting them in had been too much as far as she was concerned. I knew all this, but my mouth had gotten ahead of my brain... again.

Cindy sighed, gestured at the third woman, who had sunk into the settee as though it was the first time she'd felt able to relax in weeks, sipping the tea, her eyes closed. "This here is Tasha Jefferson... it's her we want you to hold on to for a bit..."

Piper's eyes flew wide, "A _person_! You want us to keep a fucking _person_ here? A person that this Vee wants back so badly she'll evidently tear all Sait-Germain-du-Pres apart to find her?"

Everyone was staring at her. The girls were stunned she'd sworn (they'd only ever seen polite rich white lady Piper), I was tense because I figured this was a prelude to her temper getting the better of her. I took a step towards her, ready to calm her down, but she glared at me and I stopped. That wasn't a look I usually saw on her, at least not directed my way, and it was enough to give me pause.

Before she could say anything, Tasha spoke. She sounded as worn out as she looked, but despite that and her slumped posture, she was looking at Piper steadily, "She finds me, she'll kill me..." Despite the exhaustion in her voice, her tone was firm. "She found P out alone twice, got her hands on her once and look what happened..."

Piper frowned, momentum interrupted. Usually once she got going she was hard to stop, but something about the way Tasha had spoken had clearly reached past the anger in a way that none of Cindy or Poussey's words had.

When Piper didn't immediately speak, I filled the awkward silence, "Why? What'd you do to her?"

"I left her," she frowned, recounting the story haltingly, like every word hurt to say, "She raised me, I was like her daughter... she loved me like her own... that's what she said I was anyhow. Said I was goin' to be like her right hand, said I was the only one she really trusted... but she just used me like she used everyone else. I got me a head for numbers, see. Real good at business type shit, figurin' out good rates for..." she trailed off, evidently not willing to reveal _that_ many secrets, "...but I know what she is. I seen up close how she does people who she decides aren't useful to her anymore..."

"So you just suddenly..."

"Weren't no sudden about it," the girl interrupted, "Been almost a year. She started getting into some things... expanded the business, got her some new partners... started dealin' in things... things that was just plain wrong... and the guys she threw in with... bad motherfuckers, mean and unpredictable. So were their gangs. Things kept gettin' worse and worse, she started to change. Wasn't never exactly warm, but the more ruthless the new business needed her to be... more ruthless she got... I saw things..." she trailed off, her eyes going unfocused as she stared into space. Poussey put a hand on her arm, leaned over, spoke quietly into her ear for a moment until the girl pulled herself together, then she went on.

"I had to get out. I couldn't do it no more. I'd been plannin' it for a while, tryin' to get me a little nest egg, sendin' letters to P and them... figured if I could make it here, I'd be safe... just lookin' for the right moment..."

"Why would getting here make any difference?"

"Miss Claudette... well I say Vee raised me, but she and Claudette found me together. Me and P and Cindy... we came up together, was like sisters, but they was always closer to Miss Claudette, and Vee... well she thought I had potential... When she and Claudette had their bust up, I decided to go with Vee... thought Vee would take care of me, that I'd make new friends... biggest mistake I ever made, but I didn't realize how big for a while..."

I lit a cigarette and frowned contemplatively, "So you figured you'd get back here and Claudette would be able to protect you..."

"Or Vee would forget it and let me go... though I had a feeling that wouldn't happen. I didn't realize just how mad she'd be. She barely seemed to notice how upset I was anymore, and I'd stopped sayin'. She had other folk around her now, were just as smart as me, and less worried about what she was doing... At the very least I figured I'd have time... that Claudette would get me out before Vee even got here, but she followed so fast..."

"And she couldn't find you, but she found Poussey..." I said, frowning, thinking of the state of Poussey's face when we ran into her the second time.

Tasha nodded. "She figured I was still in town, and now she wants to find me... bad...'

"What was Poussey rabbiting away from the first time we met?"

"I'd met Tash at the room she'd gotten when she first got here. I was runnin' off to let Miss Claudette know what was happening, to see if we could bring her to the Cat."

I sighed, "And if we let her stay here, you're thinking Vee won't be able to find her and you'll have time to sneak her out... what makes you think Vee will just leave Claudette alone after that?"

"Claudette has connections, from back in the war. She calls in a few favors, and someone could make some serious trouble for her business. But it takes her a while to get mad enough about anything to want to use 'em up. Business like hers, favors ain't exactly unlimited. Vee's trying to move fast enough that Claudette won't consider calling in the favors, wants to get Tash back, and once she's got her again..." Cindy frowned, not quite ready to finish the sentence.

"And once she's got her back, she'll dispose of her, and Claudette would have no reason to use any of her resources over someone who's already gone..." Piper said, finally speaking again. The worst of her temper was past, but she wasn't quite in the mood to be gentle...

"Yeah," Cindy sighed, "She know Miss Claudette ain't exactly... sentimental... She'd defend any one of us with her life while we still here, but she ain't one for revenge. She say she learned that from the war. Overreacting and wastin' time on revenge.. it might feel good for a minute, but the end it just left you more exposed..."

I'd spent enough time around Kubra and Red to know how shit like this worked. Unless you were batshit insane, you didn't want a war. Far as I could tell, Claudette wasn't probably the same kind of dangerous that Vee was, but she was plenty formidable, and Vee may have been mean enough to kill Tasha for leaving, but not stupid enough to actually start a war trying to get her. If she couldn't do it easy, she wouldn't risk doing it real hard. Not that she'd forget. Not that Tasha would really ever be able to fully relax... but maybe being here amongst friends was as safe as she could get. It was something she'd been willing to risk her life for anyway...

I looked over at Piper. She was looking hard at Tasha, clearly trying to decide what to do. She'd spent a lot of her life thinking only of herself, but then she'd spent most of it surrounded by people who didn't exactly have her best interests at heart. Her natural instinct was to be selfish because she didn't really know or care about anyone else aside from her brother. Then she'd met me and had learned how it felt for someone else to be willing to risk their life for them and things had changed a bit. She'd realized she could still care about others when the situation warranted. The question was whether or not this was one of those situations.

The girls were looking at her too, obviously sensing that I was on the brink of giving in on general principle and that Piper was the deciding vote. Finally, Piper huffed a sigh, "Forty eight hours. From now. That's it. And if there's a hint of trouble coming to our door, you're gone."

Tasha let out a long sigh, relieved, "Okay..."

Piper shook her head the way she did when she was doing something she figured she'd regret, then she walked into our bedroom, the only other room in the flat aside from the closet sized bathroom, and shut the door.

I looked at Cindy, "You stayin' too?"

"Nah. We got to get back before someone notices we're gone or sees us. We'll find you, we need to talk to you."

"All right."

"We in trouble with your girl?"

"Yeah," I said, still not quite used to how blase everyone around here seemed to be about two women being together, "but she still let Tasha stay, so I'd say it's a win. She just needs a minute to get used to this."

Cindy nodded, "Yeah, I get that." she turned to Poussey, "Let's go P."

Poussey hugged Tasha as tight as their respective injuries would allow then got up and followed Cindy to the door. With one last glance towards Tasha she left. Cindy followed, saying, "Thanks. Both of you."

I nodded. Once they were gone, I closed and locked the door. When I turned back, Tasha had melted even further into the settee. She looked on the brink of sleep now that she knew she was at least temporarily going to be allowed to stay.

"Let me get you a blanket..."

* * *

After I had told Tasha where the bathroom was and got her settled in with a blanket, I doused the lights and went into the bedroom where Piper had changed into her nightgown and was sitting at her dressing table, brushing out her hair.

I wandered across the small room, unbuttoning my shirt and skirt, and then switching them for my own outfit. In relatively warm weather, I mostly slept in nothing, but with a third person around who needed to go through our bedroom to get to the damn bathroom, I didn't think that was a good idea. I pulled a worn men's undershirt that was two sizes too big over my head and then went into the bathroom to finish my preparations.

Piper didn't say a word to me as I did all this. When I came back out, she was sitting up in bed, covers pulled neatly over her legs, book open in her lap, though she obviously wasn't reading. I slid in next to her and glanced at her, "You're not okay with this."

"I don't believe 'okay' is an option in a situation like this, darling. I'm tolerating it because I have never been able to stand seeing anyone get bullied, and I can't stomach the thought of that woman getting hold of someone she's clearly so roundly abused. But I'm not sure that this will end well for us."

I sighed, scooting over and putting an arm around her. She melted into my side with a long sigh, "We've survived Kubra and your father and that fucker Mendez, and those assholes in Tijuana, and that guy in New York who wouldn't take no for an answer... not sure anything can hurt us, long as we stick together..."

"Hm, yes," she said, quietly, "We've certainly dodged a few bullets... well, not you. You seem to intercept them more often than not... but I'm almost certain you're too stubborn to die..."

"Yeah, see... so it'll be fine," I kissed the top of her head softly, and then we lapsed into silence. It didn't take long for her breathing to even out. Piper had always been able to sleep no matter what else was going on. I took a little longer to follow, turning the night's events over and over in my head, wondering what exactly we'd gotten into, and (more importantly) how we were going to get out.

* * *

 **A/N** \- How indeed...


	6. The Gathering Storm

**A/N-** heading towards the big finale...

* * *

 **Chapter 6 - The Gathering Storm**

It took me nearly an hour to settle into sleep, and then it was broken and restless. My fucking brain refused to turn off, and even when I finally sank into sleep, Vee's eyes, cold and ruthless as any predator's, haunted my dreams (not exactly the way I was used to having women waltz through my unconscious mind).

Finally, around 3am, I gave up. I slid out of bed (Piper was, of course, still sleeping like the dead... I loved her but right now I kind of hated her too) and grabbed the dressing gown Piper had insisted on buying me when we'd stayed in New York City (something about not wanting to give the room service boy a show when he came to drop off breakfast) and slipped it on as I padded out of our bedroom and into the living area.

I headed straight for the window nearest our room, intending to climb out onto the tiny balcony take in the night air and then smoke a cigarette to try to settle my mind, but I stopped when I sensed movement from the settee. Tasha was moving around, apparently just as restless as I was.

I glanced over at her and saw her looking towards me. I held out the packet of cigarettes, "You want one?"

"Don't smoke," she said, "But thanks..."

"Can't sleep?" I asked, cracking the window and sitting on the sill, turning towards her as I lit the cigarette.

"Nah," she shrugged, "But that ain't no new development or nothing. Haven't really been able to since I started all this..."

"Sounds to me like Vee's the one who started it."

Tasha sighed, "Vee's bad news, yeah, but I let her fool me into thinkin' she cared about me, that I was somethin' special to her. Shoulda known she only wanted me around cause I could do her good with the business."

"Yeah she seemed like a real humanitarian," I scowled, remembering Vee's eyes, then shook my head once, hard, trying to get them out of there. "Doesn't exactly seem like the type Claudette would have much use for, honestly."

This brought a laugh, "That's cause you ain't spent much time around Miss Claudette. She can be a bad bitch when she wants to be. She and Vee ran together durin' the war, did a whole lotta work for the Resistance. Claudette did it 'cause she hated the Nazis. Vee said the same, but now I think maybe she only did it cause there was money to be made. If she could've made more with them goose steppin' motherfuckers, she'd probably have done it, but they hated black folk way too much to let her in the front door. I ain't personally witnessed it, but I know they _both_ did some things you don't talk about in polite company back then. There's a reason they got so much respect around here."

"They started the club together?" I asked, remembering back what Vee had said earlier.

Tasha nodded. She didn't seem reluctant to talk at all. Talking about the past actually seemed to be lifting some of the weight of the present off her a little. Despite what had happened to her, she seemed friendly enough now that we had a quiet moment. I figured if neither of us could sleep, we might as well do something to pass the time, and it wasn't like I'd had a whole lot of time to find out any real details about the people we were suddenly risking our lives for.

"Yeah... that bookstore above the club had been in Claudette's family for years. Vee and Claudette have known each other since way back, to when they were kids practically. When they decided to help the Resistance, they set up the club in the basement. Before that, there was just boxes and boxes of old books and shit. The club was the place they ran everything from, black market and rebellion... after the war, they just kept it going. Still dabbled in some shit that the law wasn't too fond of, but a lot of the guys patrollin' the streets was guys they knew from back in the war. Made it easier to do business, long as they didn't do anything too bad..."

"So why'd they fall out?" I asked, even though I was pretty sure I knew the answer.

"Vee wanted to start dabbling in the hard stuff. There was a whole new market, new paths openin' from Marseilles through to here... she wanted a piece of it. You don't even know how much money that shit stirs up..."

I thought of my own wayward childhood, running with Kubra, watching Red struggle to keep her nose out of that business. "I think I have some idea..."

"Then you know how tempting it is... all you want is profit, then it starts to look real good..."

"So Claudette said no?"

"Yeah, and since most of the people in their little organization were a _lot_ more loyal to her than to Vee... well, it didn't take long for Claudette to send her packin'..."

"And you went with her..."

Tasha's eyes skirted away from mine for the first time, and a shadow passed across her face. When she spoke, her voice was heavy with regret. "Yeah... I was only 15. I was young and fuckin' dumb. You ain't seen it, but Vee... when she wants to, she can be so fuckin' charming... she could sell ice to a goddamn Eskimo. I didn't realize it then, but she'd seen my potential for years, ever since I first started hangin' round here. She made sure I thought she could do no wrong..."

"When'd you start hanging around?"

"After my parents died. It was the last part of the war. I didn't have any family, and it wasn't like there was some charity agency lookin' to place me with some nice rich white folks or some shit. I was 12, and I kind of went wild for a bit... ran into Poussey one day, and took to her right away. She was just a skinny kid, but she'd been running messages for Claudette... people ignored kids and they ignored black folk so she was a perfect for the job. She introduced me to the others, and they took me in when they realized I was an orphan."

"You all American?"

"Me and Poussey was born here. Her daddy was a soldier in the Great War. Decided to stay on after it was over. Lotta the black soldiers did. The French may not be perfect, but I guess they offered them a fairer shake than the Americans at the time. My mama was a singer, from New York City. She came over here cause she was following some horn player and he ended up leavin' her stranded. She was already pregnant with me. She ended up marryin' a piano man instead. He was from Algeria, but they settled down here. She made sure I knew all about home...

"Poussey's mama was a friend of Claudette's, and both her folks was in the Resistance, but the rest of us... well, Claudette sort of seemed to collect orphans and lost kids. She's tough, real tough, but you know deep down she cares..." she shook head, sighing deeply, "Never did nothin' to me I didn't deserve but when you a kid... well you know how it is. You start thinkin' you're bigger than everyone else..."

She frowned, "If this all goes wrong, and Vee brings the wrath down... it's all goin' to be my fault."

"Look, I know we've known each other for about..." I looked at the clock on the wall, another antique Piper had picked up someplace, "... six hours now, but I know a _lot_ about getting mixed up in shit you can't control because you're young and angry and feel like you know everything. Yeah, you made a mistake, but the important thing is you realized it. You can't blame yourself for the fact Vee is fucking crazy."

The look on her face was skeptical, "Don't know about that... Nice of you to say, anyway."

I crushed out my second cigarette and half smiled, "I'm all about nice." I stretched and groaned as my back protested and my left shoulder creaked. The bullet wound there had healed, but it still twinged sometimes, Aydin's final gift to me (always such a polite piece of shit). "Look, Claudette's no slouch. She survived the Nazis and she's been dealing with Vee for years. If anyone can take care of her, it's her..."

"I sure hope you're right..."

"Me too..." I stood up. I wasn't any sleepier than I had been before, but I felt like, given the fact that we were putting ourselves in the path of yet another powerful heroin importer tomorrow, I might as well at least try to get some rest. If I was lying in bed, maybe the exhaustion would finally drag my fucking overworked brain down with it. "Try to get a little sleep at least. Everyone's gotta be alert as they can be..."

"Alright..."

I gave her a slightly awkward half wave (we were in a weird place... she was relying on us to keep her safe and she knew even less about us than Poussey or Cindy) and got one in return, then retreated to the bedroom. I settled back into bed and went back to staring at the ceiling...

* * *

I finally sank into an exhausted sleep around four. Tasha had done the same, finally passing out after I'd spoken to her. I woke because the smell of coffee was drifting through the flat. I groped around on the bedstand for my glasses and then fumbled for my watch, holding it up in front of my bleary eyes. Nearly noon.

I got up, put the dressing gown on and stumbled out into the main room, running a hand through my hair. Piper was standing in the kitchen, cooking eggs. The coffee pot was on the counter and I made a beeline for it. Tasha was sitting up on the settee, one of Piper's numerous French philosophy books in her lap. She nodded a greeting at me and sipped the coffee Piper had already poured for her.

I grabbed the steaming mug of jet black coffee Piper held out to me and kissed her on the cheek, "Fuckin' life saver..."

"I know, darling," she said, smiling.

She slid the eggs onto a plate and handed it to me. I went to sit at the tiny table. I was halfway through the coffee when there was a knock on the door.

Piper sighed and went to open it, fully expecting it to be Poussey or one of the girls. Instead, it was Claudette, looking as tough and unflappable as usual, with Janae, the perma-scowl on her face, right behind her. I was about eighty percent certain that fucking thing was frozen on there.

"Miss Chapman, good afternoon."

"Good afternoon," Piper replied, stepping aside to admit them. She threw a look at me. She hadn't been expecting Claudette herself to show, "Would you like some coffee?"

"No thank you," Claudette stood in front of the small fireplace and faced the room. She looked at Tasha and asked her how she was, in French.

Tasha shrugged, " _I'm alright_."

Claudette nodded, then looked at us, "I believe the girls promised we would keep you informed of all developments..."

Another knock on the door. Piper was still near it and opened it up again. Poussey and Cindy were there. Evidently they hadn't all wanted to arrive en masse. The two of them walked in, Poussey making a beeline for Tasha on the couch, and Piper raised an eyebrow, "Should I be expecting anyone else?" Claudette shook her head. Piper shut and bolted the door.

I was still eating my breakfast. I swallowed a mouthful of eggs and asked, "So, what's the scoop?"

"Yvonne came to call on us this morning," Claudette said, frowning at the memory, "She stopped short of physical violence against either us or our property, but she promised much worse in the future."

I frowned, draining the last of my coffee. Piper was there the second the cup was away from my lips with a refill. Woman could've been a diner waitress... "You said she'd back off if you just gave her time..."

Cindy, who was leaning on the wall next to the windows as she had the night before, shook her head, her brow furrowed, "She ain't givin up. She got friends in higher places now, that's what she say. Says she'll keep lookin' no matter who Claudette calls in, knows she ain't go no one big behind her."

Tasha's face was bleak, "Damn..."

Poussey threw her arm around her friend's shoulders, "It don't mean we're done, Tash... we can still come up with somethin'... Claudette's been doin' all this a long damn time..."

"But she ain't in all that shit, not like Vee is," Tasha said, running a hand through her hair, "Claudette broke with her cause she didn't want nothin' to do with what Vee's been wadin' in neck deep for the past eight years... all this time, Claudette's just been keepin' things on the low, and Vee has been buildin' up. These men with her... they are no joke, and they want me back there, just as much as she does..."

"If you knew she had more power than Claudette could deal with," Piper put in, "Why did you come back here for protection?"

"I didn't mean for her to find out where I'd gone. I was s'posed to be out on a delivery run, typical, gone for a week. Figured I would come straight here and then be out of the city before she even realized anything was wrong. Then she could come down here all she wanted and I wouldn't be here for her to find... but then at the last minute one of her guys decided to tag along, and he caught me leavin'... gave me half a beat down before I managed to get away. He wasn't talkin' to no one in person, but the big hole in his chest was more'n enough to say what'd happened. Vee was probably after me the morning after I took off."

"And by the time you got here, Claudette's connections were all you had to bank on," I finished.

"I didn't think she'd want me back so bad. I figured even after she followed me, she'd stop if she met some resistance. I've seen her do it before... but I'm... I guess she figured I was more important..."

Claudette agreed, "She's usually more deliberate than this. Such bold moves as she made in the club are not necessarily her style unless she deems them entirely necessary. I expected her to be more careful, to observe us rather than tip her hand this way. I would have expected she would bring more men as well..."

Piper spoke suddenly, her voice speculative, as though she were thinking aloud. "Something's not right here. She's in a hurry, and it's not just that she's worried about what Claudette might be capable of doing… it worries her, because she's not got the connections here like she did before, but it's not her primary concern," Piper frowned, thinking. The others were looking at her incredulously, not quite believing the fancy looking blonde socialite might have any insight into a criminal operation's inner workings. Everyone always figured that I was the one who knew more about the rough stuff.

I stifled a smile. It always amused me to see people underestimate her, if only because the look on their faces when they realized what she could do was so fucking entertaining. Piper continued speaking, a contemplative look on her face, her brow furrowed. From the way she spoke it was clear to me that she was talking mostly to herself. Turning them over out loud always seemed to help her.

"If she was really willing to do whatever it took she'd have devoted more resources to this. I know what it looks like when a person with real power, someone in charge, is determined to achieve something. They don't stop until they're forced to stop," she glanced at me. We both knew that if she hadn't given Kubra and her father bigger fish to fry in the form of a massive police investigation, that they might still be after her. In fact, we both knew that if Kubra ever got his feet under him again, he might still come after her (well, both of us). And he wouldn't bother being nice about it.

"Instead," she continued, "She appears to have brought only two men, and while she's quite good at throwing around threats and beating up people she can isolate and get away from safety, she hasn't taken real action against Claudette. At first she tried to get away simply with pressing Poussey for information. The only time she even laid hands on one of you, in Claudette's presence, was when her man pushed her," she gestured to Janae who glared at her out of habit, "when they came down. And that was a situation when Claudette couldn't exactly start a massive fight either. It was crowded, a scene would've done no good for either of them."

Cindy spoke, "So you're thinking she has someone she has to answer to?"

"Yes. That's exactly what I think. Perhaps someone who doesn't know Tasha is gone, at least not yet," Piper looked at Tasha, "You said that you did her numbers, her accounting… were you the only one?"

"There's other guys, I guess. I'm better at it than they are. And I came up with the system they use to put shit in the books."

"So if she loses you, she's not completely fucked, but her operation gets less efficient… the real problem seems to be that you know so much."

"Yeah," Tasha said.

"One would assume that letting you slip away wouldn't endear her to her boss, whoever he is. So on the one hand, she needs to find you quickly and with minimum fuss because of him. Punishing you for bruising her ego may be secondary…"

Claudette broke in, "Oh, I would say it is perhaps a bit more than 'secondary'… Vee does not take kindly to personal slights."

"But does a personal slight take precedence over making the boss happy?" I asked.

Claudette shook her head, "If there's money in it, she would put aside personal issues, but she would _never_ forget it."

"So if the boss knew what she was doing," I said, seeing where Piper was going with this, "then he might tell her to stop wasting resources… rein her in... order her back home... and away from Tasha."

"We must be cautious here…" Claudette said, "If Vee has a boss, then there is a chance that, if he knew Tasha was missing, he would send men after her himself. It is true that Vee does not wish to lose standing in the organization, but equally true that he would not want someone with a head full of information running free and unpredictable. It would never be enough simply to tell him that she was going to stay silent. If we overplayed our hand, we would exchange one problem for another."

Piper nodded, "True, but if we could play it correctly…"

There was a scoffing sound from the corner of the room. Everyone turned to see Janae with her typical look of naked disbelief and astonishment at how stupid everyone else was on her face, "Y'all are fuckin' crazy. You can talk you want about some mystical boss Vee has, and how she's afraid of him or whatever other bullshit, but you don't even know who the motherfucker is. Unless you're hidin' some big old chart with the names of all the drug bosses in Marseilles on it, we're just as fucked as we were the minute you opened your mouth and started tryin' to get everyone's hopes up for no reason, rich girl."

Claudette gave her a fierce look, "Enough, Janae… these women have helped us without the promise of any reward. They are risking much. Your disrespect is a reflection on me and I do not appreciate it…"

Janae crossed her arms over her chest like a petulant teenager but she shut up. Claudette looked at Piper, "I'm sorry. Janae's mouth doesn't always know how to stop itself…"

Piper shrugged, "Quite alright," she said politely, although I knew that she and Janae weren't going to be sitting out in the park weaving flowers into each other's hair anytime soon.

"Unfortunately, she has a point. I have some connections, but none in Marseilles or in the particular business Vee finds herself in. I was a smuggler for a long time, but the club has become so popular I don't operate the way I used to. I do not know anyone in the trade, and I do not wish to know them. My contacts are all in Paris and from the old days, powerful for what they are, as long as we are here, but nothing outside of that."

Tasha sighed, "Then we're back to where we started, like she said…"

"Well," I said, pushing myself off the wall, "Maybe not _quite_ all the way back to where we started… I'm thinking things might have to go down a little bit differently than Piper's saying... but I also think I know someone who can help..."

* * *

 **A/N-** Who could it be...?


	7. The Set Up

**A/N-** Enjoy!

* * *

 **Chapter 7- The Set Up**

"Nicky... it's Alex..."

It took a second for my name to finally register with her. "Vause? Jesus! You callin' from fuckin' Paris? Will wonders never fuckin' cease... you're lucky you caught me..."

The phone connection was scratchy and Nicky's voice sounded like it was coming from the other end of a long tunnel. She sounded like she was yelling to make herself heard, and I was doing the same. It was no wonder we didn't try to call each other much. Well, that and person to person transatlantic long distance to fucking LA was goddamn expensive. Piper had explained the mechanics of it to me in great detail, but I had lost track of the number of connections we were making after the one from Paris to London and from London to New York over some transatlantic coaxial cable or... something.

We kept up with current events by exchanging letters about twice a month (she sent hers to me under a series of what she thought were fucking "hilarious" fake names, just in case Kubra's people were still hovering around… the last one was Altituda LeGrand… the bitch), so I hadn't actually heard her dulcet nicotine saturated tones since a single farewell call before I'd left Mexico.

"Yeah, sorry to call unannounced," especially given how insane the cost was just to connect, "But I'm in a pretty serious bind and I need some help from you… well, from Red anyway."

If we hadn't been paying $50 a minute or something equally insane, she probably would've given me some shit about the fact that the first time I'd called since leaving was to hit her up for help. However, we both knew that she would eventually consent to do what she could, so we just skipped the foreplay. "Always askin' me to bail your unnaturally tall ass out…" okay so we didn't skip _all_ the foreplay, "You know you'll owe me one… a fuckin' big one now since Red's probably gonna take the charges for this call out of my next check…"

"I promise I'll get you the prettiest prostitute in Paris if you come and visit us."

"Not a bad deal… what do you need?"

"I need you to ask Red for an introduction to her nephew… the one who lives in Portugal…"

"You mean Maksim the guy who smuggles H?"

"Yeah. He does a lot of business in Marseilles, right? I heard Vasily say something about it once..."

"So they say... but not like Red's giving me daily updates on the family tree…"

"Would you say he's pretty big up there? Knows a lot of names?"

"Far as I know, he's one of the biggest smugglers in Lisbon. Guy like that probably knows a lotta names…" I could practically hear her frowning, "Not sure how willing he'd be to give you any news flashes about them… don't usually get to where he is by doing a lot of sharing…"

"I know…" which was part of why getting this introduction wasn't exactly a guarantee of success…

"You sure you want to be getting mixed up with that guy…? Guys who deal in that hard stuff aren't exactly known for willingness to help the unfortunate, not for free anyway…"

"Red used to tell me that she was his favorite aunt, that he owed her for helping him get set up in Lisbon in the first place…"

"It's true… and the guy loves her vetrushka…" she trailed off. For a minute, the only way I knew she was still on the line was because it was still making a racket of popping and in my ear. Probably didn't really want to be the one responsible for introducing me to a guy who could kill me… Finally, she said, "All right, I'll see if Red can get you an intro."

"Thanks, Nicky, you're saving my life here… possibly literally…"

"Yeah yeah… what else is new…" her voice turned serious (or at least it did as far as I could tell), "Look, Vause, you know Red'll do what she can to make sure the guy lets you in the door and doesn't immediately fuck you over, and maybe some extra pastries in the next care package'll get you one free favor, but you want a piece of advice from someone who knows how these Russians work, don't get in to deep with the guy. Even if he agrees to tell you whatever the hell it is you want, make sure you examine that particular gem real careful to make sure there's no fucking strings attached. Owing him'd almost definitely be worse than whatever you're tryin' to get out of."

"We won't," I said, making a promise I really, really hoped I could keep, "Thanks again, Nicky."

"I'll talk to Red when I get in to the club. I'll send you a telegram in, say three hours, to let you know what she said. She says yes, I'll follow up when she's talked to her Little Maksy…"

I checked my watch. It was 6pm here, which meant in LA it was 9am. Nicky would've been getting ready to go out on her daily collection run and she'd be at the club within the hour to check in first. I gave her the information for the nearest Western Union and said, "talk to you later?"

"Maybe after I'm done paying off this call… even six thousand miles away you're a pain in my ass Vause…"

"And yet you keep coming around…"

She barked a laugh and said, "Yeah, that's cause I got low standards. Later, Stretch."

"Later," I replied and the connection cut.

I settled back in my chair and looked over at Piper and Tasha. The others had gone back to the Cat at around 9am, to keep an eye out for Vee and because they knew I couldn't put in the call until the evening, when I was sure Nicky would be awake and probably at home. "She'll ask Red," I sighed, and went to the door, "I'll go out and see if I can scare us up some dinner…" If we were going to have to do yet more waiting, with Vee breathing down our necks and getting more frustrated by the minute, I wasn't planning on doing it on an empty stomach.

* * *

I got to the telegraph office ten minutes early. I was restless just sitting around the flat. Piper was used to biding her time, and Tasha knew she had to stay to keep everyone else safe (and besides she was so exhausted she kept dozing off), but I felt wired. Ever since I had talked to Nicky I had been itching to come down here, to actually be doing something that might eventually lead to this damn mess being solved.

The telegram was there when I asked for it. It had been received about a half hour before. I tore it open in the office and looked at it.

 _Got this off as soon as I could/Knew you would be impatient as usual/Red says yes/cousin will contact you/had to give him your info to call/know you will not like/but only way he will do it sorry/still owe me/tell blondie hi/offer for threesome still open/later_

I chuckled. The last part had almost definitely been just to shock whoever was sending the telegram. I stuck the papers in my trouser pocket and made my way back towards the flat, the smile on my face fading slowly as I lit a cigarette and considered the rest of the message.

Nicky was right. I didn't like putting Maksim in control of our interactions, and I knew Piper wouldn't either, but it's not like we had a whole lot of choices. As awkward as this was, it was the fastest and most reliable way we had to find out whether Vee worked for someone else and who that was. I definitely didn't like the thought of owing Maksim anything. He may have had a soft spot for Red, but Red was in LA. Even if she got pissed at him, it wasn't like there was much she could do except stop sending him food.

I stopped at the little store on the corner to pick up some more cigarettes, then headed up to the flat, where yet more waiting lay in store.

* * *

The telegram from Nicky had arrived at a little before 9pm. Our phone rang two hours later, just as I was considering running out to get still more cigarettes. I had gone through twice as many as usual while we were waiting… my other usual method of relieving tension wasn't available since Tasha was staying with us… the girl had seemed pretty open minded about me and Piper, but I didn't think she'd be _that_ open minded.

Piper and Tasha had been in the middle of a discussion of whether Piper ought to broaden her literary horizons ("All this shit is fuckin' dreary, Chapman," Tasha had said, "I mean, gotta expand your mind and all, but you ever just want to read somethin' fun...?" "Fun?" "Agatha Christie or some shit..." "Murder is fun?" "Well, it's at least entertaining...") which halted immediately.

We had decided that I would handle the initial contact since I was the one who'd arranged things. I pulled the phone over to the table and sat down, taking a deep breath before picking up.

"Yeah?"

A pause, "I am Makism. One you wished to speak to," came a deep raspy voice. The Russian accent was so thick I had to concentrate to understand what he was saying. At least Red told him I couldn't speak the language.

"Uh, yes. I appreciate you contacting us."

"I owe _Tetya_ Galina many things. Fifteen minute conversation… not problem."

"I… I need to know something about someone you might have worked with."

Another pause. I imagined what he was thinking and rushed to fill the silence.

"It's not anything that'll get back to you. I swear. And it won't affect your business in any way."

"I am businessman in very sensitive line of work. You would be surprised what affects business, especially being… how you call?... snitch…"

"I'm not asking you to be a snitch. Not like we're cops. We're just… this person is a danger to us. If we had this information…"

"Her?" he sounded surprised, "You want information on woman who is in my business?"

"Uh, yes…"

"What woman?"

"She goes by Vee. Her real name is…"

Maksim made a noise that sounded distinctly like he was spitting on the floor, and then let loose a soft but virulent string of what I recognized as Russian curse words (all right I guess I knew _some_ Russian), ending with " _Blya piz'da_ …"

"Uhhhh…" I glanced over at Piper and Tasha, who appeared to have heard the rant from where they sat. "… so I take it you know her…?"

"She is reason my rates for product through Marseilles have gone up," he growled, not elaborating, "also keeps stealing best people from me… Never had any problems with her boss until she came..."

"Sounds like you wouldn't mind if she maybe lost some ground with him..."

He went silent. His voice when he spoke again was wary, "Galina said you were friends, said to help if I could... but friends of hers or no, I am not an informer..."

"We don't need you to tell us anything about him..." At that, Piper gave me a look. The plan was to get the boss's name, but as I'd spoken to Maksim, I'd realized we'd been coming at it the wrong way. We were both rusty with dealing with guys like this. They weren't likely to give up names of people above them, certainly not to people they barely knew, not if they wanted to keep all their limbs intact. However, no one liked a new guy who came in and rocked the boat. Criminals were like anyone else... there were traditions, business practices. Punishments for failure were a little harsher than in a legit business, but the competitiveness, the ambition was still there.

Someone like Vee was bad for Maksim because she'd somehow managed to get in good with the boss in a relatively short period of time. Maks wouldn't roll over on the boss for anyone, but maybe he didn't need to. I was thinking fast now, making shit up as I went along. I didn't want to lose Maksim now because if I did there was no way to get him back.

"How'd you like to have something over Vee? Something that would make her stop fucking around with you and your rates?"

"Something?"

"Yeah, a piece of information that would do some serious damage with your boss if he ever found out..."

"Is not my boss, is her boss. I am freelancer..." he said, but the protest was half hearted. There was a contemplative note in his tone. After a long pause, he said, "But... putting her in her place does not sound like bad idea... what do you propose?"

* * *

"That sounds even more fuckin' crazy than the other plan," Cindy said when I laid it all out for her and the others at the Cat the next afternoon. I'd come in through one of the tunnels that ran under half the neighborhood, leftover from the war. If Vee had had the manpower, she'd have been watching all of them, as it was she only had enough guys to be in a couple places at once.

"It can work..."

"And how do we know she won't just shoot us all anyway? Or that she won't just run to her boss and tell him what really went down?" asked Janae, her usual skeptical scowl firmly in place.

I turned to Claudette, "You know her better than any of us. Would it work? Would she leave Tasha alone if she thought that we could somehow ruin things with her boss if she didn't?"

"Most likely... Vee obviously wishes to punish Tasha, and now us for helping her, but in the end, she is about the money... the business. If she truly believed she might be diminished in the organization, she would leave it be... at least until she figured a way around it."

"And what if your 'friend' decides to take the information and use it anyway?" growled Janae, "He'd just piss her off and she'd come after us again because she'd have nothing to lose..."

I sighed, "Yeah I admit that's a bit what if, but it's a risk we have to take. You talked about overplaying our hand, and that's still a danger. If we don't balance all the moving parts, something could slip and we'll all be fucked anyway."

There was a long pause. Poussey spoke up, "You think she'll even believe we can get to her boss? That we can do anything to her through him? I mean, we don't even know who he is..."

"And you said your guy isn't willing to come here anyway. I doubt she'll believe a voice on the phone..."

"That's the part of the plan I was saving for last..."

* * *

They didn't like it. But in the end they realized none of their options were pleasant or easy, and this one was probably the one that had the best chance of working (even if there were a whole lot of "what ifs" involved, which was never great with someone as unpredictable as Vee). We needed to do it fast, because Vee had already roughed up a couple of the local merchants, old Resistance hands who'd known Claudette for years, and as time ran low for her, who knew what else she might try.

Vee had given Claudette the phone number for the flat she was renting out while she was here, assuming that eventually Claudette would cave. It took us a few hours to get everything we needed in place, including another call through to Maksim to let him know things were going forward as we'd discussed.

Something about owing him a favor made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up, but he assured me that if this information gave him leverage over Vee, he would call things even. "Maybe if you were not friends of Galina, I would see things different, but... _yeye tovarishch moy tovarishch, da_?"

"Sure, comrade. Thanks..." I had replied, although I still wasn't entirely easy about it. However, I figured if he was half as scared of Red's temper as everyone else, it'd count for at least something.

Claudette set up the meet at noon the next day at a cafe one of her old friends owned. The place was just across from the Seine on the corner of Rue du Beaune and the Quai Voltaire, a few blocks to the east of our neighborhood, technically neutral ground. Even though Claudette would arrange to make sure it was empty, it had windows facing two streets and would be filled with light at the time of the meeting. It was a place she'd chosen to make Vee think twice about starting a fire fight or pulling some other bullshit.

She'd arranged for her police pal Gaetan to make sure there were no patrols around. He couldn't help if they got called in someplace else (he wasn't willing to stop gendarmes from going where they were needed), but he could make sure no one bothered them unless some real shit started.

Vee hadn't been particularly happy about the meeting taking place in a location she couldn't control, but she wanted it over with, and Claudette had made sure to make clear that this was an end... and that Tasha would be there.

We gathered at the cafe a couple hours early to make sure everything as in place. It had been agreed that Claudette would only bring two of her people, to match Vee's numbers (or at least the number she was showing), but she didn't tell them which two she'd picked until just before the ones that weren't staying had to go.

She gestured to Cindy and Maxwell and told everyone else to make tracks. Which of course sent both Poussey and Janae into fits.

"Nah, that ain't right!" Poussey protested, "I ain't lettin' Tash stay here if I can't watch her!"

"Fuck that, I ain't lettin' you shove me over for fucking Cindy! I'm a better shot than her and I can actually run two blocks without fucking collapsing!"

"Don't hate because you got bird arms and no proper curves, bitch," Cindy retorted, though her tone was mild, "Not my fault you all cranky cause you ain't never get to eat any of them cakes Claudette makes with the cream filling inside 'em..."

Janae glared at her, "You look here, Cindy, I'll..."

"Enough!" Claudette said, her tone sharp and firm, "You," she looked at Poussey, "are too close to the situation, your judgment will not be sound, especially considering what we are going to have to do. The slightest slip up will tip our hand, and we cannot afford it. And you," she turned to Janae and pinned her with a baleful look, "you may be good at some things, but you have a temper and a mouth that you have never been able to properly control. Another thing we cannot afford," she gestured to the door, "Now go! There is not much time. If we aren't back in three hours, call Gaetan..."

Both of them stayed where they were, apparently contemplating rebellion, but Claudette's authoritative glare didn't waver. Poussey was the first to turn away, her expression tormented at the thought of leaving Tasha to her fate. She gave the other girl a tight hug then headed towards the door, where she paused to wait for Janae, who was still scowling at Claudette. Finally, she turned away as well and stomped towards the door.

Once they were gone, Claudette looked at me, "And now it is only us and your plan."

I nodded, taking a long drag on my cigarette. "Yeah..."

She glanced at the clock on the wall. "You should get into the back room. No doubt Vee will be checking the area before the meeting, we would not want to overplay our hand..."

Another nod and then I turned and walked past the neat lines of tables toward the office that the owner used to store his records. I slipped in and closed the door behind me.

Piper was sitting at the owner's desk with a copy of _Uncle Vanya_ in her hands. She looked up when I came in and raised an eyebrow, looking much calmer than she had any right to, and stood, putting her book aside and standing to greet me.

Despite the situation, I took a second to just drink in the sight of her. She was dressed to kill. She'd actually bought a new dress for the occasion ("I have to play the part, darling..."), deep red, satiny, hugging her curves in all the right places, more suitable for a high class night club at midnight than a little cafe at noon. My mind started to stray, thinking it would look even better pooled at her feet...

Piper half smiled at the look on my face, "Now darling," she stepped around the desk and advanced on me in a way that was designed to fluster me, "while I'm all for new and interesting experiences, I'm fairly sure we don't have time for that just this minute, and besides this desk doesn't look particularly sturdy. We wouldn't want to repeat what happened with the table..."

"That fucking table... I don't recall you complaining at the time..," I breathed, my thoughts still firmly in the realm of the inappropriate, if only because it was more comforting than thinking about what was about to go down, "and besides, this desk may be plywood but the door is plenty solid..."

"Hmm..." she gave me a wicked grin, "maybe later..." she leaned back and sighed, "business first sadly"

I sighed too, "Always so dedicated..."

"Hm when it's warranted..." she gestured to the door, "everything's ready?"

"As it can be. Maks said he'd be prepared to do his part, so now it's all down to us."

She nodded, tilting her head slightly as she studied my face. It was the look she gave me when she was trying to read me. "You look worried, darling."

"I _am_ worried," I admitted, taking out a cigarette and lighting it off the one I'd just finished, "I've spent most of my life trying to keep out of the way of people like Vee. Being a PI was a good way to indulge my instinct to pry without actually risking anything more than a shiner and a crooked nose... it wasn't supposed to get me in deep, and my retirement sure as hell isn't supposed to be doing it either."

"It will be fine, darling," she said, smiling at me as she reached up and took my cigarette, taking a drag on it before she leaned forward and kissed me. I melted into her embrace, taking at least some comfort from it. We may have been teetering on the edge of a cliff, with only my half assed plan between us and the drop, but at least we were in it together.

When we parted, I gave her a rueful look, "Sorry I'm ruining your retirement, kid..."

She shrugged, "I was equally responsible for getting us into this, Al. Helping Poussey was a choice we both made." She kissed me again, this time on the cheek, and handed me back my cigarette, "And a _little_ excitement keeps things fresh..."

I chuckled, "That's one way to put it..."

Before she could reply, we heard movement out in the cafe. Someone was knocking on the door. I took a long last pull on my cigarette before stubbing it out in the ashtray on the desk and moving towards the door to the office so I could hear better. I heard Claudette greeting Vee and set my jaw. It was time...

"You ready?" I said softly, glancing back at Piper.

She smiled and there was a wicked, ruthless gleam in her eye as she said, "Oh darling, this is the sort of thing I've been doing all my life. I've seldom been more ready..."

I grinned back. It wasn't the first time I was fucking glad Piper was on my side. And with that we both went silent, waiting for our cue.

* * *

A/N- Next time- the confrontation!


	8. A Friendly Conversation

**A/N-** The end...

* * *

 **Chapter 8- A Friendly Conversation**

It didn't take long for our moment to arrive. Outside, we could hear the sound of the cafe door opening and people shifting around. I could practically feel the atmosphere getting heavier. I cracked the office door so we could hear everything clearly. Piper was just behind me, listening and readying herself for what she was about to do. I peeked through the gap in the door to get an idea of where everyone was.

Vee wasn't here to fuck around. Claudette had put her in the same room as Tasha, and now that she was there, she didn't seem to be in the mood to play any games. She'd definitely decided to drop any pretense of being the least bit charming.

As soon as Vee had come in, her boys had taken up positions flanking her, making sure they were between Claudette and her people and the door. Cindy was leaning against the cafe's service counter, near the cash register. Tasha was sitting at a table near the back of the cafe, close to where we were. Maxwell was standing just in front of her, on guard.

Claudette was standing in front of Vee about six feet in front of the door. And in spite of the fact that Vee was towering over her, Claudette was more than holding her own. Vee's attempts to intimidate her with her stature and her baleful glare had failed miserably. Claudette stood ramrod straight, her chin up, her arms crossed over her chest, in control as always.

Giving up on staring Claudette down, Vee's eyes flicked to Tasha, "You've caused me no end of trouble baby girl, but that's over now. You come to me now and I won't have to hurt anyone else."

"Except me..." Tasha said, her voice didn't waver, although from my angle I could see a her hand on her knee under the table, nervously tapping, "I ain't a fool, Vee..."

"Any hurtin' I put on you, you brought on yourself with this foolish rebellion, _ma fille_. You can't have thought you'd escape any punishment..."

"You crazier than I figured, you think I'm going back to you..."

"And how do you think you're going to escape me now?" Vee glanced back at Claudette, "Claudette has brought you here to me... given you up. You've run out of protectors..."

Claudette bristled at this, "You have misunderstood my purpose, Yvonne," she said, quietly but firmly, "I did not bring you here to abandon Tasha to you. I brought you here so you would understand quite clearly that she is no longer yours, that she is under protection..."

An unpleasant smile twisted Vee's features and she laughed without humor, "Protection?" her tone was mocking, " _Your_ protection? What is that worth? You can barely hide her when I have only brought two men with me. How will you keep her from me when I bring them _all_."

"You cannot bring them all, because you are not even supposed to be here. You answer to someone, and as I understand it, he would not be pleased to know that you lost Tasha..."

Vee shook her head, "You're grasping at straws, Claudette. You have nothing. If you do not give Tasha to me now, I will take her..."

Claudette uncrossed her arms and stood aside. I looked over at Piper... she nodded. She knew it was almost time. "Certainly... take her if you can, but perhaps you should know, _I_ am quite aware that I cannot protect her from such as you, but there are some who most certainly can..."

I closed my eyes, threw up a prayer just in case someone might be listening for once, and opened the door to the back room. I stood aside and allowed Piper to go out ahead of me, following a step behind.

Piper glided into the room with the imperious stride of someone who knows they are in absolute control of everything around them. She was carrying herself with the authority and grace of fucking royalty, and it gave Vee pause even as she stared at her incredulously.

She recovered quickly, going for hostile, which is about what we'd expected. She didn't know Piper from Eve, so it was natural she'd ignore the natural haughty arrogance that said she was used to being in charge and only see the fact that she was young and blonde and pretty. As Piper swept forward, one of Vee's men, the skinny one, leaned to her ear and spoke quietly before stepping back again. Vee glared at us, "And who in the fuck are you?"

Piper raised an eyebrow, "You should be more polite, Ms. Parker," she said, her voice matching her posture. "Manners are a virtue, especially when you do not know who you are speaking with."

"I'm speaking with a skinny white twig of a girl," Vee growled, "Who my man informed me was just some do gooder in the street..."

Piper had come to a halt at one of the tables between where Tasha sat and where Claudette and Vee were. I swept forward and pulled her chair out. She slid into it smoothly, posture still finishing school perfect. I stood behind her with the vigilant, vaguely threatening look of a bodyguard, my hands behind my back. Piper's expression was shading from merely haughty to outright contemptuous, "You should show more respect to someone who has the power to ruin you."

"Ruin me?" she scoffed, "I ought to shoot you right here..."

"You could. But then you'd lose the opportunity to keep your business intact and your boss blissfully ignorant of the fact that you've lost someone with a head full of knowledge he'd much rather have contained..."

"I've lost _nothing_."

"No, but you're going to."

Vee was still glaring, but the wheels were turning. She kept the belligerence, it was her way of salvaging some pride (she wasn't going to grovel, and she sure as hell wasn't going to just believe Piper outright), "You want to explain yourself?"

"My name is Piper Chapman. I'm an associate of Galina Reznikov, who is currently the biggest boss in the Greater Los Angeles Area. You're familiar with her?"

Vee grimaced, "We may have crossed paths once or twice..."

"Ah, then you know she is not one to be taken lightly..."

"Perhaps she's not, but that still doesn't mean that _you_ are..."

"If you've heard of Mrs. Reznikov, then perhaps you have also heard of Kubra Balik?"

Vee nodded.

"I am the reason that Kubra Balik is no longer a going concern in Los Angeles crime."

She narrowed her eyes. It wasn't clear whether she believed Piper, but Piper had definitely captured her attention. "Even if that's true... why should Red concern herself with anything that happens here? She's in America, and doing well. There's no need for her to send an agent, certainly not to deal with a... private matter such as this..."

Piper gave Vee a condescending smile, "Mrs. Reznikov _is_ quite content with her endeavors at home. But as you know, she and her husband began their careers in Russia and still have interests both there and in Europe. Interests which have been highly profitable for many years and have lately become less so. One of her... concerns... is run by her favorite nephew, a man who I believe you are acquainted with, Maksim Kuznetsov."

Vee's expression tightened. It was more than enough confirmation she knew our friend Maks.

Piper continued as though she hadn't noticed, "Mr. Kuznetsov has explained to Mrs. Reznikov that the source of the cut in his profits of late has been a new associate his main supplier has taken on. Someone who has changed the pricing of the product that they are sending. This new associate has ensured that their boss's customers do not protest and that they do not switch suppliers through methods that are rather brutal and unscrupulous... even for criminals... Since I had been so successful at assisting her with her own issues with intransigent competition, she sent me to see if I could help Mr. Kuznetsov with his little supply problem."

Vee scoffed, "You're telling me that _you_ work for the Russian mob?"

"Are you really so surprised?"

"Knowing a bunch of names means nothing. You could've found those out from Claudette or any one of a dozen other places," her tone was skeptical, although we all knew that Maksim's name wasn't exactly one that American tourists in Paris were tossing around between trips up the Eiffel Tour and strolls alongside the Seine. "And if you worked for him, what would you even be doing here? If you knew him, you would know Paris is not his patch..."

"As a matter of fact, we were merely taking in the city. It's been many years since I've visited. When we encountered your men beating Miss Washington the other day, we assisted her. This led us to Le Chat Noir..."

Vee looked at Claudette, "You expect me to believe you just laid out your business for these white girls?"

Piper cut in, "Oh she was most secretive. It wasn't until you invaded her club a few nights later that we really understood something was going on. When Mrs. Pelage said your name, we recognized it from our conversations with Mr. Kuznetsov. Naturally we were curious as to what your interest was..."

Claudette gave Vee a grim smile, "They offered a way around you, one that allows Tasha her freedom. Strange bedfellows, Yvonne..."

"You're all just blowing smoke," said Vee, a smile playing at her lips, "It's a nice story and all, but it's just that... a story, a nice little fairy tale you expected me to just eat up like I just crawled out of the fucking cradle... _do you even speak the fucking language?_ " she added in Russian.

Piper smiled ruefully, " _One would hope so given that I'm trusted with matters such as this... Mr. Kuznetsov's English is quite atrocious and it would be maddening to speak to him in that language all the time_."

Vee narrowed her eyes, and for the first time since she'd gotten over her initial shock at our sudden appearance, I saw a little doubt creep in around the edges of her ironclad certainty that we were lying to her. I silently thanked God that Piper had studied Russian literature at Smith, and that she was such a goddamn purist that she insisted on reading _Anna Karenina_ in the original language. ("It has more meaning that way, darling..." "Pipes, the woman throws herself in front of a train over a guy... the only meaning I'm seeing is that Russians are fucking depressing..").

Piper gave Vee an indulgent smile, switching back to English for our benefit, "I didn't expect you to simply believe me," she gestured to me. I walked over behind the bar and lifted the receiver on the phone. As I dialed through to the operator and gave the information Maksim had given to me earlier, I hoped that the Russian would keep up his end. If he didn't come through, we were fucked. "But I think you'll believe him..." she inclined her head slightly towards the bar where I had the phone.

The phone connected and I heard it ringing. I tried to keep my expression casual as I waited for Maksim to pick up. He finally did so on the seventh ring. "Da?"

"It's me Maksim."

"Ah good... I was beginning to worry..."

"She's right here."

"Do not worry, Vause. I know my part."

"Okay," I turned to Vee and held out the phone without a word, trying my best for the bland look of all the muscle and bodyguards I'd ever run across in my time.

Vee looked at the phone receiver like it was something that was going to rear up and bite her, and her skepticism sure as shit hadn't disappeared completely, but she walked the short distance to the bar with one of her guys at her side and took the phone from me gingerly.

The conversation wasn't a long one, but I knew that Maks was saying what we'd arranged because Vee's face went very hard as he spoke, and when it was finished she growled, "Oh, rest assured, there are some things we will most certainly be discussing in the _very_ near future... comrade..." She thrust the phone back at me.

I resisted the urge to smirk at her as I raised it to my ear again. From his tone, I could tell Maksim was grinning, "Whole scheme is worth it already... I have never heard that _suka_ sound worried before. I have done my part, I will wait to hear if you have done yours. _Dosvidanya,_ Vause..."

" _Dosvidanya,_ boss," I replied, then I put the receiver down and went back to stand behind Piper, who was the very picture of a woman in complete control of the situation.

Vee went back to where her other man stood and examined Piper more closely now, "So you're working for him. As far as I can tell that means nothing except that his organization is more fucked than I had thought it was. How exactly do you think you're going to use this to _his_ advantage...?"

Piper shook her head, "You can't see it? Truly? They had all told me how clever you were, what a great businesswoman..." she leaned forward, her voice going hard, her eyes suddenly cold as ice, "and you can't even see that if we wanted to we could undermine your entire position with your boss with a single call..."

"Watch your step, girl... I don't take well to insults, especially ones based on nothing but smoke and mirrors..."

"I do so hate having to spell things out," Piper sighed, holding her hand up. I produced an envelope from the inside pocket of the fitted coat I was wearing and held it out to her. She grasped it and placed it carefully in front of her, "This is a letter Tasha there has written. In it, she has laid out in quite thorough detail all the ins and outs of your organization's accounts. The methods you use to collect money, to move it, to conceal it... it is quite intriguing reading..."

"And it means nothing. Kuznetsov already knows all of that."

"But the newspapers don't. Nor do the authorities. Both of them are quite interested in the drug trade, this so called French Connection that has become so notorious..."

Vee narrowed her eyes, "To make that public, would do as much damage to him as to me..."

"Oh I wouldn't say 'as much'... our Russian friend isn't the one who let Tasha slip through his grasp, is he? And besides, the letter doesn't actually mention him. Strangely, of all the names she listed, his was absent. What do you think the boss would say if he knew about this? If he knew that it was you who let her go, you who did not tell him when such a loose cannon was out of your grasp... that she had written such an explosive letter... one that could have, at the very least have caused him immeasurable amounts of trouble..."

Vee had gone very still.

Piper continued, warming to her subject now, "So fortunate that associates of Mr. Kuznetzov were in town, that we managed to intercept the wayward lamb..."

"If you told him that, the boss would want the Russian kill her..."

"He wouldn't have to. Regretfully, when we found out that she had written the letter, that she was about to distribute it, that she would never willingly go back to work for him, we had to dispose of her ourselves. Sad, and perhaps a setback as her head for numbers is quite stunning, but her accounting methods are firmly in place, and there are plenty of numbers men that can massage the figures, albeit with less skill... it is a loss he'll just have to get over..."

Vee stared hard at the letter in Piper's hands. Her thoughts were written all over her face... destroy the letter and then find a way to get rid of all of us somehow...

Piper laughed harshly, "You really have underestimated if you believe this is the only copy of this letter. One is on its way to Lisbon as we speak, and there are other copies that have made their way to trusted individuals and hidden places."

If looks could kill, we'd have all been stains on the floor. Vee was clearly enraged. We, and by extension, Maksim, were now in control of her fate. Tasha running off and getting killed before her information in her head could fall into the wrong hands, either the law or a competitor, wouldn't make Vee look great, but it wouldn't destroy her. hell it might even do less damage than if she dragged Tasha back kicking and screaming. The boss would get over it as long as it was already contained. And Maksim got to look like a hero. If Vee told the truth, then the letter Tasha had written got spread around and everyone was fucked... _except_ Maksim. The plan fell apart if someone saw Tasha, but it wasn't like she was going to be headlining a cabaret show or anything. Claudette had learned a lot about how to conceal people in the war.

"I can see that you're also saying to yourself... well how does this improve my good friend Maksim's position... why would he assist us if there wasn't something in it for him? It's a very good question really. Easy to answer as well.. you're going to restore the old rates for his product."

"The _fuck_?!" the words tore themselves from Vee's mouth seemingly against her will. She probably prided herself on not giving anything away... poker faces were essential in her business... but some situations weren't going to be easy to

Piper gave her a sympathetic smile, "And I also understand that your boss has been expecting you back for two days. He's not a particularly patient man, is he?"

I could feel Vee's frustration and anger building as she ran over and through everything Piper had said, looking at it from all angles and finding nothing that she could latch on to. Maybe if she was given plenty of time to plan, she could've countered ours, but the situation didn't give her the luxury of time.

"And what am I supposed to tell him when Maksim's payment is short?"

"You're a resourceful woman. I'm sure you'll come up with something at last passably convincing," the smile Piper flashed was all charm, like she was a senator's wife shaking hands with guests at a reception. It was the smile her father had paid thousands of dollars for her to learn. I'm sure the bastard would've been thrilled to know she was using it to such great effect.

Vee shot daggers at her then looked at Claudette, "So this is what it's come too, Claudette? You crawling on your hands and knees to this child for help? Do you know what kind of man Kunetsov is? Owing him is a mistake…"

"He is a snake," Claudette conceded, narrowing her eyes, "But I have dealt with animals worse than him before. Whatever debt I might have owed him, you are paying back for me."

Vee stepped forward, looming over Claudette, all pretense of being amicable having taken a powder as any advantage she had in this situation had slowly drained away, "You may have found a way around me now, _mon ami_ , but I wouldn't get too comfortable… when I have taken care of my business…"

"You are welcome to try what you like, but you would do well to simply steer clear... of all of us," Claudette held her gaze, unwavering. Eventually, Vee was the first to slide her eyes away.

They came to rest on Tasha, still sitting at the table behind Piper and I, "And you, you petulant, ungrateful child… remember what happens to those who dishonor their elders…"

"I ain't afraid of you anymore," Tasha said, her voice calm and level, "I know what you are, and you can say all you want, try to scare me, but nothing you can do to me now would be any worse than having to live with you…"

"And what are you going to do now?" growled Vee, "Live here with _them_? With me you could have gone far, achieved so much… what will you do here? Balance the books for a sad little bar? Sit behind the counter of a store full of crumbling books?"

"I don't know what I'm gonna do and I ain't sure I care… all's I have to know is it won't have nothin' to do with you…"

Something about Tasha's tone, defiant and contemptuous and completely unafraid, evidently made Vee forget where she was and that she was technically outnumbered, because something flashed in her eyes and she shoved past Claudette and went flying towards Tasha.

I pulled the gun from the small holster I had on under my coat and planted myself in front of her. The men behind her went for their pieces as well, but before they could even bring them free of their coats, Cindy's gun was in her hand, pointed at them. The girl was a deceptively fast draw, "Ah naw, boys, you want to put them away. I'm a delicate lady, don't like no one wavin' guns around… makes me swoon or some shit…"

They might still have thought about it, but Cindy had captured their attention long enough for Claudette to produce a small pistol from her ankle holster. They went for the better part of valor, though it clearly didn't make them happy, and put their hands up. Vee had gotten too far from them too fast for them to do their jobs properly.

Vee stopped in front of me, but the anger was still burning in her eyes, "Get out of my way, girl. Some people here need some lessons taught…"

"Yeah, if we're talking manners, I'm not sure you're the best qualified," I replied. I had my gun held in front of me in a policeman's stance, like Uncle Joe had always taught me. Personally, I wasn't a huge fan of the fucking things. As far as I was concerned, once the guns started coming out, the real problems started. If I had to fight, I preferred my fists or maybe a good blackjack, the dirtier the better, because I wasn't above a little cheating if it would help me win (pride was fine, but I'd known a whole hell of a lot of prideful dead guys). But I couldn't deny that guns were often the quickest way to end an argument.

No one in this room wanted to started taking a swing at anyone, not really, that'd just get everyone riled up and make us all forget what we were here for. This was all supposed to be a nice civilized conversation.

Vee held my gaze, as she'd held Claudette's a moment ago. It was clearly meant to scare the shit out of me. It certainly managed that to a degree, but I wasn't exactly quaking in my ugly, sensible shoes. Even though she'd bought that Piper and I were working for Maks she was still obviously underestimating our level of experience. I'd been dealing with people like Vee since I was 13. I didn't like them, but I didn't see them as supernatural beings.

Finally, she seemed to realize that her cavalry was indisposed and that I wasn't going to back down. She scowled at me and turned back towards the door…

Or at least that's what I thought she was going to do…

Instead, halfway through her turn, she pivoted back, quick as a fucking viper, thrusting out her right arm and bringing her hands down on my wrists shoving the gun off to the right even as she moved her body to the left, ensuring that she was out of my line of fire. For good measure, she brought her left hand around and socked me in the side of the face harder than she should've been able to, given the fact that her own whole body was traveling in the other direction.

I was caught entirely off guard… Evidently I hadn't been dealing with nearly enough scumbags lately, because I'd fallen for the oldest trick in the book like a fucking sap. I also wasn't used to seeing bosses take matters into their own hands. They had muscle for that, and when the muscle was indisposed they usually held off. But all excuses aside, she fooled the shit out of me, and as Vee let go of my hands and my momentum sent me stumbling towards the bar, gun hand flailing as I tried to regain my balance, the left side of my face flaring with pain, all I could hope was that Tasha wasn't the one who paid for it.

I managed to control my fall enough that when I hit the bar, it was with my back instead of my front, which would've probably ended up with my face hitting the bar hard. My breath got knocked out hard, and I scrambled to get my feet under me again, ready to go at her again before she got to Tasha and Maxwell…

And found that Vee was on the floor, Piper standing over her and glaring down at the other woman with cool contempt.

(As Cindy told it to me later, the second Vee had punched me, Piper, who Vee had either forgotten was there, or had discounted as a threat, had reacted with her own unnatural speed, thrusting her leg into Vee's path, sending her sprawling. She'd then gotten up from her chair, stepped forward to where Vee was trying to stand up, and kicked her hard in the face. I personally had no idea where she'd learned those moves, but I had a feeling it hadn't been at Smith…)

Piper glanced over at me, "Are you all right, darling?"

I nodded, both impressed and kind of turned on by Piper's actions, "Yeah, I'm all good boss."

Having established I wasn't permanently damaged, Piper looked at Vee. When she spoke, her voice was as cold and hard as a diamond, "Perhaps you should accept defeat gracefully and walk away while you still have full use of your limbs."

Vee looked up at her, still obviously angry as hell, but now also nursing what was going to be a beauty of a bruise on the side of her face. She finally seemed to realize just how outnumbered she was… and that Piper was just as dangerous as any of us, if not more.

Piper saw something in her face that she took as a sort of surrender, and nodded curtly. Without taking her eyes off Vee, she turned slightly and snapped her fingers, "You two…" she said, addressing Vee's gorillas, "I think your boss needs a hand…"

Cindy kept her gun trained on them in case they tried anything, but they seemed pretty out of it. They weren't built for thinking, and Piper taking Vee down had been far outside their previous realm of experience. They rushed forward and helped Vee up. She allowed them to help her to her feet then shrugged them off, straightening her clothes. Her eyes hadn't left Piper.

"I won't forget this…"

"I wouldn't expect you to," Piper replied, "Although I suspect you are taking entirely the wrong lesson from the entire experience."

Vee spat some blood on the ground and walked towards the door without another word. As she reached it and one of her boys went to open it for her, Piper called to her, "Oh and Mrs. Parker…"

She stopped, but did not turn back.

"Mr. Kuznetsov will be in touch with you, about his product."

There was a moment where I thought Vee might turn around and try to start some shit, but in the end she just kept walking. One of the boys opened the door for her and then they walked off down the street.

Frozen in place, we all watched them go, six pairs of eyes following them as they walked east down the Quai Voltaire, disappearing back towards Saint Germain. After about five minutes, Cindy blew out a long , loud sigh of relief, which seemed to break whatever spell had been holding us in place. Everyone moved, seemingly at once.

Piper immediately walked over to me. I had taken out my cigarettes and was lighting one, grimacing at the dull ache in the side of my face that would likely turn into a nice sharp throb when the adrenaline wore off. The ruthlessness had dropped from her eyes, and they'd gone soft and full of concern, although behind that, I could see her anger with Vee was still fresh. She touched the bruised side of my face gently, "You really must stop using your face to intercept fists, darling, I much prefer it unbruised..."

I leaned into her touch and smiled ruefully, "Ah, you know my day's not complete without getting punched, babe." I closed my eyes and sighed, her hand a pleasantly cool contrast to the heat that was radiating off injury. For a moment I allowed myself just to be happy that we'd both made it through another situation that probably should've taken us down.

Tasha slumped forward, dropping her head into her hands, tension leaving her body like a valve had been turned. Maxwell smiled (maybe the first time I'd ever seen her do it) and clapped her on the shoulder, leaning down and speaking quietly, comfortingly to her in French. Cindy had gone behind the counter and had turned around holding a bottle of wine, which she promptly uncorked and took a long swig straight out of (I could sense Piper grimace at that... she didn't like to see good wine go unappreciated, and the wine Cindy had grabbed was a '34 Chateau Cheval Blanc, which I knew was excellent because when Piper got a little bit more blotto than usual, she'd give mini lectures about whatever it was we were drinking and "'34 was the only decent year for Bordeaux in the whole decade, darling...")

After she had downed half the bottle, she thrust it towards Piper, who gave Cindy a look that was straight out of a Beverly Hills finishing school. I couldn't imagine any situation where Piper Elizabeth Chapman would drink wine, _especially_ a '34 Bordeaux, straight out of the fucking bottle, and it made me smile (which in turn made my face hurt). But Cindy just rolled her eyes at Piper's expression, "It's for the redwood's face..."

I scoffed as Piper took the bottle, "Yeah that nickname's getting more charming by the second..." I muttered, but I couldn't deny the cold bottle felt pretty good against my face.

Claudette had been speaking quietly to Tasha and Maxwell. After a moment, she nodded and stood, walking back towards us. She nodded at Piper, "That was quite the performance, Miss Chapman... almost frightening in its efficiency really."

"One must have some talent. I'm glad I could use such deceptions in the service of something good."

The older woman nodded, "I am grateful for your assistance, all of us are. Without you, it is safe to assume things would have ended in a much less favorable way."

I inclined my head towards where Cindy was now giving Tasha a bear hug, "What's she going to do now?"

"Stay here, with us. On the one hand, Vee will know where she is, but on the other, she will at least have friends. And I will not deny my books could use a good once over. Your Comrade Kuznetsov has promised to communicate with us should his boss ask after Tasha to check up on our tale."

"You think Vee will stay away?" I asked.

"People like Vee do not forget slights such as this. For now, it is in her best interest to give up the fight and let her boss believe the story we have told. As time passes, who knows whether this will remain the case," Claudette drew herself up ramrod straight, "But I have dealt with her before. I know her better than perhaps anyone. And the longer she stays away, the more time I will have to prepare. If she comes back, I will do my very best to make sure it is the last time she troubles us."

Something about the glint in her eye told me it was no idle threat, but almost as soon as she said it, the look disappeared and her mouth turned up at one edge, the closest she came to a smile, "Now come! Let's get back to Le Chat before Cindy opens another bottle of someone else's expensive wine... I'm certain Poussey is climbing the walls..."

* * *

 **A/N-** Yay! Epilogue to follow, hopefully soon...


	9. We'll Always Have Paris

**A/N-** As promised, the epilogue! It's been fun writing this, and I was glad to be able to get back into this AU. Many, many thanks once again to reverse-swing for reading it for me and re-assuring me it wasn't awful, and for coming up with the most excellent title. And thanks for everyone who reviewed (even the negative ones), faved, followed or just read. I really appreciate it!

* * *

 **EPILOGUE- We'll Always Have Paris**

 _FOUR WEEKS LATER_

"God damn! Swear you got to be cheatin'! You pullin' those aces out your ass or somethin'?"

I grinned as Cindy tossed her cards down in frustration, "Look, just because you've gotten all complacent 'cause no one around here knows how to actually play..."

"Bitch, I've forgotten more about this fuckin' game than you've ever learned," she said.

I chuckled lightly, talking around my cigarette as I swept the pile of loose change and cheap trinkets into my stack, "That's not what all this money that used to be yours is saying..."

"Deal again, Snow White! I ain't lettin' you leave here without getting my damn money back!"

Poussey was grinning from the bar where she was helping Tasha do an audit of Le Chat's books (and by "helping", I mean keeping up a rapid fire banter with her... it had been a month and they evidently hadn't caught up on everything they'd missed yet), "Cindy, you ever heard of quittin' while you're ahead?"

"I ain't a-fuckin-head, P!"

" _Un fou et son argent sont bientot separes_..." I said, shrugging as I shuffled.

Cindy glared at me, "I see your French is improving..."

"I've only learned the important shit..."

"How about this one: _va te faire foutre, c'est des conneries_..."

"Y'know, when you say it in French it just sounds like you're coming on to me," I leaned forward and raised an eyebrow, putting on my best smirk, "Cindy you're so fuckin' hot when you're angry..."

Cindy narrowed her eyes, "I _know_ you think I'm sexy, Vause, what with all these curves, but you ain't my type... 'sides I'm pretty sure _la princesse_ would probably stab me in my sleep. I saw that look she gave that skinny chick who tried to cut in on you last week..."

My smirk spread into a languid grin at the thought of that night... we were pretty secure in our relationship and jealousy didn't really factor in much, but Piper sometimes liked to remind me of why I'd dropped everything and followed her halfway across the world.

"Oh fuck, are you thinkin' about sex?"

"Seriously, Cindy, stop making the moves on me..."

"You obnoxious, you know that?"

"It's been mentioned," I spread my hands, "And yet you keep letting me back in..."

"Yeah well, no one ever said we had the best judgment," she jerked her head in the general direction of the back room, where Janae was with Claudette doing an inventory, "I mean we let Janae hang out with us all the time and she's annoying as fuck..."

"I heard that!" came Janae's voice.

"You was meant to!" yelled Cindy.

As I laughed, I glanced down at my watch. I sighed regretfully, "Sorry to say, Cindy, but we're going to have to cut this one short."

"Aw hell no! You gotta give me a chance to win my shit back!"

"Like the last three times...?" asked Poussey.

"Oh shut it, P..."

"I promised Piper I'd meet her after she was done with the reading at _Les Deux_..." I shrugged apologetically, "Sorry I can't take the rest of your paycheck, but maybe Tasha can find something in the bookshop that'll help you play better..."

Cindy flipped me off as I swept my modest winnings into my purse and stood. "Yeah yeah... we gonna see you tonight?"

"Nah, we're going to dinner. Maybe tomorrow though?"

"Yeah. We got a new guy comin' you'll like."

"Great," I headed towards the door and waved, " _au revoir_..."

They waved back and I walked up the stairs, down the now familiar dark hallway and out the black door, into the late afternoon light.

* * *

Piper was seated outside the cafe, a cup of tea in one hand, an open book in the other. The weather had cooled off some in the last month, but the day had been cloudless and even with the approaching evening, she looked comfortable in her light jacket. She looked totally at ease, in her element in a way that I didn't figure she'd been since maybe she was at Smith.

Watching her as she took a sip of tea then turned a page, half smiling at something she had read, I could believe that we'd finally reached a place where we wouldn't have to worry anymore. It wasn't that I thought everything would always be perfect, but I figured that at least we were done with having guns pointed at us and our lives threatened. I mean, yeah, I was being sort of optimistic, but something about seeing Piper like this got me feeling all warm inside.

As I approached she looked up at me and smiled, a big genuine smile she saved just for me, one that turned the warm feeling in my chest up a few notches. She closed her book and laid it on the table next to her cup as I arrived at her side. I gave her a kiss on the cheek and took the seat across from her at the tiny circular table.

A waiter appeared out of thin air and I said, " _Cup of coffee, and one of those pro-fit-er-oles, please_ ," in badly accented but entirely comprehensible French. He disappeared back into the cafe and Piper raised an eyebrow.

"Getting better every day, darling. You almost pronounced profiterole correctly this time."

I lit a cigarette and sighed, "Well, it helps that Claudette won't speak to me in anything but French anymore." It was something she'd started doing after I pronounced Champs Elysees "Chomps Ulysses" one day. She'd literally smacked me on the back of the head and told me if I was going to live here I was going to have to learn something other than swear words. Sometimes she reminded me a little too strongly of Red.

"How is Claudette?"

"Didn't see her much today. Just played a few hands with Cindy..."

"I don't understand why she still plays with you. You beat her every time."

I grinned, "She's just trying to figure out how I'm doing it. Convinced I'm cheating."

"And are you?"

"Aww, Pipes, you wound me... I would _never_ cheat..."

"You would never cheat _if_ you could win in another fashion," Piper said, as the waiter came out with my tiny coffee and dessert, "I seem to remember you telling me once that the only time Nicky ever punched you sober was when she found those aces up your sleeve..."

"Look, I was just a kid then..." I took a bite of profiterole, paused a moment to savor it and stifle what would probably have been an embarrassing moan of pleasure at the taste, then smirked as I swallowed and said, "If I'd been older I'd have hidden the fucking things in a much less obvious place."

"Yes well, I've had more than enough of you getting damaged, so if you could refrain from annoying any of the girls _too_ much..."

"Ah, they love me there, babe. Besides, Cindy's all talk. I caught her shedding a tear when she was listening to _La Vie En Rose_ the other day cause it reminded her of her grandmother... Worst she'd do is chuck me in the shoulder and swear at me. Not like she's Janae..." Janae... I figured out she'd never do anything to defy Claudette directly, but I wouldn't want to be on the receiving end of that ice cold temper of hers.

"Did they have any work for you?"

I shrugged, "Nothing big. Jacques thinks one or more of his guys is stealing from his liquor shipments, but he can't prove it. All the numbers are coming out right, but it still feels off." Jacques was Claudette's old friend, the one who owned the cafe we'd met Vee at.

"That seems as though it would be more than one man..."

"Maybe, or maybe just one who's real good at massaging numbers," I finished the profiterole and sipped the last of my coffee. I stared down at the plate longingly for a moment, mourning the fact that the thing was gone already.

Piper half smiled, "Licking the plate isn't socially acceptable, darling."

"These French and their goddamn rules..." I sighed, leaning back in my chair, letting the food settle, "I'm going to go over and see Jacques tomorrow, poke around a little, see what I can figure. Far as anyone there knows he's not on to them, and I'm just some friend of a friend who likes their foie gras."

Piper was nodding with interest, a fond look in her eyes. She liked that I had finally found something to dispel some of my occasional restlessness. Taking on Vee with them had won us a lot of credit with Claudette and the girls from Le Chat. We weren't exactly family, not like they were to each other (that kind of bond took a lot more than a couple days to form, no matter how traumatic those days had been), but there'd been a lot more acceptance than before.

We started going to Le Chat Noir regularly. Not only did we have an in with the owner, it was a damn good club. The drinks were strong and we'd won the right to have a couple rounds free every night. After a week or so, Piper had decided she wanted to take a look at the bookstore Claudette owned. Poussey ran the place, and Tasha had taken to helping her most days.

Piper had gotten engaged in a conversation with the two girls about expanding her literary horizons (a continuation of the discussion that had started when Tasha been staying with us), and I'd ended up wandering down to the club, where I'd found Janae and Cindy playing poker. Cindy had dealt me in, and after that I'd made a habit of coming by when I had some free time and hanging around with them.

It was during one of these games that Cindy had mentioned a friend of theirs who was experiencing some issues with her business (a seamstress thought her suppliers were delivering her subpar materials). Janae had snorted, "Didn't you used to be some sort of private dick? Why don't you make yourself useful and help her out? Or you too busy rubbing the Princess's feet and feeding her bonbons?"

I'd thought about it and figured why the fuck not (and of course I wanted to wipe the smirk off Janae's face...). I'd helped the seamstress, and after that it seemed like they found another half dozen friends or acquaintances or fellow business owners who were having problems. I didn't take all the jobs (I wasn't going to follow any more cheating spouses around for as long as I lived), just enough that I felt like I was useful.

Sometimes I got paid and sometimes I didn't, but I hardly minded. We had plenty of money, and so far I hadn't had anything that was too taxing or in any way dangerous. The fact that Piper no longer felt guilty for taking me away from LA was just a nice bonus.

"How long do you think you'll be with Jacques?" Piper asked, bringing me back to the present.

"Ah probably not long. Should be able to meet you for lunch if you want?"

"I'll just meet you there. I like the foie gras too..." she looked at her watch, "Ah, we'd better get going, darling. The reservation isn't for another hour, but it's such a pleasant evening, I feel like walking."

She settled up the bill and we stood and started down the sidewalk towards the Seine. She took my arm as we walked and I smiled.

Strolling the streets of Paris with the woman I loved on my arm, heading towards a good meal... We had a roof over our heads, money in the bank, people we could trust to have our backs, and no one actively attempting to kill or maim us... I wasn't sure I could ask for anything more.

* * *

 **A/N-** Annnd done... hope you enjoyed it! Thanks again for reading!


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